MUSIC REVIEWS

The Chicks “Gaslighter” (Columbia Records)

The newly minted The Chicks pull a phoenix-like move with eighth studio album “Gaslighter.”

The Dixie Chicks have died, long live The Chicks. In a stunning act of double re-invention, the country-pop trio have changed their name and re-emerged from a 14-year hiatus and personal turmoil with their new album — one that feels so private it’s almost as if you are there, nose-pressed, at steaming lead singer Natalie Maines’ windows. The artist — who worked through her feelings about her divorce from actor Adrian Pasdar creatively — commits an act of immolation of her marriage so radical, it bursts through every lyric on the record.

The Chicks’ two singles from the album, the title track and “March March,” envelop one in their up-tempo; the former with its bop-y, almost playful drums, and the latter with its dramatic, synth-y waterdrop effect that makes one forget its call to arms intent. They burst through with vigor and the promise of an energizing re-invention.

Instead, the 12 tracks are a deconstruction and reconstruction of emotions that sometimes drag with its quiet, ballad-heavy set.

It will save many broken hearts along the way, taking this country theme to a new, almost quantum level. The Jack Antonoff-produced record’s low key instrumentals — lots of strings in “Tights on My Boat,” “Young Man” and “Set Me Free,” banjos in “Sleep at Night,” the touch of the violin in “Julianna Calm Down,” a dash of church organ in “My Best Friend’s Weddings” — and stripped down vocals make for a curious Schrödinger’s cat of a record. For the most part, the feelings of the lyrics are tampered down by the music: the anger is there but it’s not there, the sadness is there but it’s not there. The Chicks have worn their heart on the sleeve, but they’re afraid to move on and have fun.

After all, they’ve all been burned before. — Christina Jaleru, Associated Press

The Pretenders “Hate for Sale” (BMG)

Call them the great Pretenders, because that’s what they are on their latest studio album that is among the best this legendary band has ever produced.

It starts off punky, complete with a false start on the title track, as raw, urgent and aggressive as they have ever sounded. Close your eyes and you can picture this one blaring out to the leather-and-safety pins crowd at CBGBs in the late ’70s.

“The Buzz” follows, a melodic power pop gem in the spirit of “Kid.” The buzzsaw guitars return on “Turf Accountant Daddy,” a song about a man burning the candle at three ends, juggling lovers.

“I Didn’t Know When to Stop” and “Didn’t Want to Be This Lonely” capture a garage band energy and optimism that it’s all still in front of them — even for a band already in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And try not humming the melody to “Junkie Walk” after hearing it just once.

Singer-songwriter Chrissie Hynde sounds as good today as she did in 1979. Her trademark vocal catch, where she inserts a tiny hitch into a one syllable word to draw it out, is on full and frequent display. You’ll lu-uhv it, trust me.

Hynde wrote most of the album with guitarist James Walbourne, who also contributes slashing, speedy solos along with perfectly restrained melodic lines, depending on what’s needed. — Wayne Parry, Associated PressS.G Goodman

“Old Time Feeling”

(Verve Forecast)

To draw a bead on the unique artistry of S.G. Goodman, it helps to know that she claims the influences of power-chord guitar legend Link Wray and her southern Baptist roots in almost the same breath.

That’s hard to reconcile, sure, but so is the feat she pulls off in her engaging debut album “Old Time Feeling.” The album, produced by fellow Kentuckian Jim James, lead singer of My Morning Jacket, takes those and other influences and runs with them.

Wray’s calloused fingerprints can be sensed most directly in the title cut, which sounds like someone paired Patsy Cline with the muscular style Wray used to launch a generation of guitar copycats. It’s patently unfair to compare Goodman’s singing to Cline’s, of course, but the point is the juxtaposition. Rock this driving and vocals this plaintive shouldn’t fit together so well.

An even better comparison for the vocals might be Hazel Dickens, the fearless, mountain-grown warbler who helped deliver coal mining union songs to the mainstream. Goodman’s singing has the same rare quality of being both languid and urgent.

Goodman, too, has been open about her leftist politics in Kentucky, and she’s even been known to cover “Which Side Are You On?” Lyrically, though, this album dwells less on activism than on relationships and a landscape filled with cottonmouths, “gas station delicacies” and cypress knees. Goodman draws deeply on her small-town western Kentucky upbringing near the banks of the Mississippi River, and none of it feels forced.

Her range shines on several elegant ballads, especially the achy “Tender Kind.” A daffodil pressed into a book; a trip to Memphis recalled — the writing is vivid and spirited, as it is throughout the album.

It’s yet another reason to hail Goodman’s arrival as an intriguing, original new voice. — Scott Stroud, Associated Press