After their debut album went nowhere on the charts and their record label dissolved, Little Big Town was at a crossroads. Though 2002 was a much friendlier sales climate than 2005, trying to come back would be enough to break an average group. Fortunately, Little Big Town isn't average. After working day jobs to make extra money and touring to get their name back out there, the group signed to Clint Black's Equity Music Group and hooked up with Wayne Kirkpatrick to give themselves the musical makeover necessary to create the album to get them a strong hold in the industry.
On the strength of four top 20 singles, The Road to Here was just that, going platinum and making a name for the foursome. However, one look beyond the singles and it's obvious that cohesion and clarity were heavy on the group's mind in creating the record. You immediately notice the production differences on tracks like Live with Lonesome; what would have been a syrupy exercise in self-pity turns out to be a rather delicate, almost poetic ballad of resignation and sadness. It immediately put me in mind of something Alison Krauss would sing, as it's stripped, spiritual, and downbeat. However, it showcases how strong their harmonies had become (i.e. very) and you get to hear some subtle emoting without it ever becoming pitiful. Good as Gone is such an interesting song to listen to, as it strays outside what a typical song of this caliber would sound. Moody, slithering, and melodically stunning, it's like a blues song, a bluegrass song, and a country song had a child; all about texture and one of the meatier hooks on the record, it's a memorable piece of material that stays with you after the record has finished. Bones captures exactly the type of vibe that Little Big Town tends to have; it's like Fleetwood Mac spent a weekend in the backwoods south, the type of down home charm and immaculate harmonies (the arrangements on the record still blow me away five years later) that are prevalent throughout much of The Road to Here. It may start and finish leaning more toward finesse, but it's got smoldering, controlled aggression about it, which make it have that much more bite. It's easy to curse someone out, but to be able to creatively come at someone without losing your dignity is impressively southern. Bless their hearts.
Looking For a Reason strikes a balance between tracks like Bones and Live with Lonesome, helping with the cohesion of the record. While it may have the type of swagger that seems to permeate songs about independence, there's also a noticeable humanity to it and vulnerability to the lyrics. This isn't the type of I-don't-need-anybody-and-I'll-bash-my-ex-for-5-minutes song that it comes off as; listen closer and you hear the same type of self-doubt and longing for love as heard in Lonesome, a trait that grounds the song. Lost drops every bit of bravado and self-pity of the previous songs, opting to become a raw and honest look at the change that comes with the end of a relationship. Lyrically, some may think of it as a tad whiny, but I don't hear that; I hear someone obviously in pain and unsure what to do with himself (the group does a nice job of dividing lead vocals and this is one of the male-led songs). With some hushed background vocals, lonely steel, and solemn acoustic guitar, it's quiet and introspective, just the way it should be. Welcome to the Family isn't a bad song, per se, but it's just stale. For most of the record, the group manages to reinvigorate well tread topics and find distinct slants to take that haven't been used much in country music. However, this just piles on the clichés and stock imagery to make for a boring listen. Too often, the genre falls into the trapping of listing familiar things in a song or trying to stay as everyman as possible and this song is no different. Whether it be daddy with a shotgun or talk of preachers and sheriffs, it tries to take on the closeness of a small town, but the song just limits itself.
The Road to Here feels much more authentic than the group's debut album. Whereas Little Big Town was bright, shiny, and clean, The Road to Here takes more chances and roughs things up just a bit, allowing the tremendously tight harmonies to be center stage for a vast majority of the material. There's some actual edge to the music and you don't see the smiling popstars that you saw on album number one. Instead, you get a much more candid, honest look at who Little Big Town is, a span of 13 tracks that deals heavily in the melancholy and themes of solitude. The Road to Here may have hooked people for the success of the singles (most notably swamp-country ode Boondocks and tender Bring it on Home), but it showed country music fans that change isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially when your career is on the line.
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