Ocean
represents something of a re-centering for
Lady A
. Arriving in November 2019, a few months after the conclusion of their brief Our Kind of Vegas residency,
finds the trio recording with a new label, and a new producer,
Dann Huff
, who has been on a hot country streak since helming some of
Taylor Swift
's
Red
in 2012. The group may have departed
Capitol Nashville
for
Big Machine
, but
sounds like the group returning to the kind of warm, soft-focus country-pop that established them as hitmakers ten years earlier.
don't deny they're a decade older anywhere on
. The album is filled with songs about enduring love, both romantic and familial. It's telling that "What I'm Leaving For" -- a ballad about the heartache of leaving a loving home -- was among the songs that teased the album: its unabashed sentiment is the keystone of
, plus the trio's revival of their close-knit soft-rock harmonies. Compared to the subdued glitz of
Heart Break
, their modern-minded 2017 collaboration with
busbee
,
feels reserved and cautious, but it also feels soothing and welcoming. The whole thing rolls so smoothly, it's easy not to realize that the lightly grooving "Pictures" is a song of heartbreak, but that's the intent of
with their seventh album: They mean to offer comfort, and that's precisely what
delivers. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine