Ocean

レディ・アンテベラムのBig Machineレーベル移籍第一弾アルバム!

2年ぶりの7thアルバムにして、Big Machineレーベル移籍第一弾アルバム。

Ocean represents something of a re-centering for Lady Antebellum. Arriving in November 2019, a few months after the conclusion of their brief Our Kind of Vegas residency, Ocean 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 Swifts Red in 2012. The group may have departed Capitol Nashville for Big Machine, but Ocean sounds like the group returning to the kind of warm, soft-focus country-pop that established them as hitmakers ten years earlier. Lady Antebellum dont deny theyre a decade older anywhere on Ocean. The album is filled with songs about enduring love, both romantic and familial. Its telling that What Im 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 Ocean, plus the trios revival of their close-knit soft-rock harmonies. Compared to the subdued glitz of Heart Break, their modern-minded 2017 collaboration with busbee, Ocean feels reserved and cautious, but it also feels soothing and welcoming. The whole thing rolls so smoothly, its easy not to realize that the lightly grooving Pictures is a song of heartbreak, but thats the intent of Lady Antebellum with their seventh album: They mean to offer comfort, and thats precisely what Ocean delivers. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

2年ぶりの新作は、レーベルを移籍してビッグ・マシーンからのリリース。テイラー・スウィフト『Red』などを手掛けた名匠ダン・ハフをプロデュースに迎えた今作は、まさに原点回帰と言えるカントリー・ポップ。3人の歌声、ハーモニーを生楽器中心のストレートなアレンジで包み込んだ楽曲はハートウォームで嫌味がない。キャリアを重ねたぶんだけ感傷的な表現力も増しており、最高傑作の一つと言ってもいい完成度の高さだ。
bounce (C)赤瀧洋二