Winfield's Locket opens well enough with Brooke's gently loping mandolin and crooning harmonies about fast cars, radios and roads on the way back to a lover. “Fast” is not the most innovative song, but the overlapping vocals and pretty harmonies keep you from immediately realizing how interchangeable the sister's voices are. The albums lead track, “Save Yourself,” is the perfect song to introduce the band to mainstream country radio. It features a stomping beat, banjo nearly burred under a screaming guitar and female “sass” couched safely in the context of a romantic relationship. Fans of more intriguing fare would do well to check out “In a Letter,” “The Storm” and “Worth The Drive.” “In A Letter” is a Greencards-esque ballad about pining for a lost lover. “The Storm” jumps more into The Waifs territory, all bluesy snarls and sinister intensity. “Worth the Drive” is a clever and catchy tune about a woman offering her lover increasingly obscure, back roads directions to her house, just to see how hard he's willing to work to get to her. “I guess you won't know 'til you get here if I'm worth the drive,” she shrugs. Unfortunately, much of the album sinks into a preachy place that the sisters have neither the vocals nor the writing chops to navigate well. In Hope Is On the Way they advise a suicidal man to put away his pills and gun because “darkness always ends with the dawn of a new day,” completely ignoring that a new day will only make him a day later on the bills that drove him to what appears to be a very determined suicide attempt. “Love Him Like You” is a rather awkward and clunky thank you from a newly wed to her husbands mama. Perhaps the song with the most wasted potential is “How Much I Gave,” a simmering song about watching a former lover move on with his life, ruined by a vocal attempt to immolate Christina Aguleria.
Musical trends are a tricky bet for the most gifted of artists, which is why the most gifted of artists generally let them go. This is where modern country music becomes a bit of a sticky wicket for acts like Winfield's Locket. There is not really a place for polished, contemporary popped up bluegrass on the Americana side, yet the mainstream demands a conformity which does not allow them to distinguish themselves. At their best, Winfield's Locket sound like a slightly less interesting Kinley's. At their worst, the sound like karaoke singers trying to find middle ground between Michelle Branch and Jennifer Nettles.
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