A PLACE TO LAND - LITTLE BIG TOWN
Refusing to limit itself to country conventions, this four-way-harmonizing Nashville group’s follow-up to its platinum breakthrough, “The Road to Here,” marks a huge leap in confidence — not to mention, maybe, the best Fleetwood Mac album in 30 years. “Fury,” the Eagles-riffed warning of a woman scorned, is basically hard funk; “Novocaine” and “Firebird Fly” remind you why folks used to dance to Sheryl Crow and the Doobie Brothers; “Vapor,” which opens like Neil Young and features one verse about an unnamed Jesus, concocts a chorus by switching around John Mellencamp’s “Paper in Fire”; “Lonely Enough” hitches theological doubts to a melody appropriately reminiscent of (but a lot warmer than) “Dear God” by XTC.
