Fly

Despite their protestations, the Dixie Chicks are being marketed as the Spice Girls of country (references to Chick Power can’t be mere coincidence), but that shouldn’t take away from the spunky aggression of the three former buskers from Texas, nor prevent the unconverted checking out Fly, their second album.

If anything, they’re a Corrs for country fans, and even the most cynical will risk being captivated by their breezy concoction of country, bluegrass, hillbilly swing, pop, folk and soft rock. Add their infectious skin-tight harmonies, as on ‘Cowboy Take Me Away’, and their raunchier-than-redneck rhythms in ‘Ready To Run’, ‘Hole In My Head’ and the funked-up ‘Some Days You Gotta Dance’, and you can only lay down and surrender.

Throughout Fly, Natalie Maines’ distinctive upfront voice overflows with a joyous sensuality, especially on ‘Without You’, ‘Let Him Fly’, ‘If I Fall You’re Going Down With Me’ and ‘Hole In My Head’.

Elbowing aside the moribund conveyor-belt Nashville tribe of session musicians, they insist on playing most of the instruments themselves, including the fiddle, banjo, dobro, lap steel and guitar dotted through such gems as the winsome ‘Cold Day In July’ and the galloping ‘Sin Wagon’. Most notably there’s some fine fiddle and viola from Martie Seidel, especially on the Corrs-like opener ‘Ready To Run’ and ‘Cowboy Take Me Away’.

Dennis Linde’s ‘Goodbye Earl’ is a rocking murder ballad that, in the hands of the traditional country sob merchants, would lapse into maudlin territory. But not here. Under the Chicks’ wing it’s a gutsy country song wearing a provocative sneer on its sleeve, and has some fine banjo and organ to boot. But even when they turn to more traditional country material like ‘Hello Mister Heartache’ the Chicks prove they’ve more balls than Ronan Collins.

The Dixie Chicks are not just three gritty blonde dames from Texas in frilly frocks – and if this is how country music might sound in the next century it could just be worth hanging around.