Artist: Rascal Flatts
Label: Lyric Street Records
Release: 2009
Length: 45.45
Rating: 2.5/5
Rascal Flatts are a firmly established name in the US when it comes to commercial success. “Unstoppable” is their sixth studio effort overall. And the fact, which the title of the new record already hints at, is that these “redneck” boys really aren’t letting up. In the commercial sense, of course. So far the band has sold a whopping 18 million albums, picked up every music award going in the US, and landed five albums at the top of the Billboard 200 chart, and “Unstoppable” didn’t escape that fate either. In short, it’s hard to think of anything Rascal Flatts haven’t won in their career.
These guys, with the look of innocent, nicely soaped-up and sweet-smelling stallions, are of course selling pop music under the guise of a rock image. They add a strong dash of country to a sound that’s been thoroughly road-tested on the new album too. So on one hand they combine rock elements, which they soften with country influences. That’s why we get no further than pop. And it’s not Rascal Flatts’ intention to reach for anything else anyway, when the whole of the US demands only one thing from them. Gorgeous “crooning” along the stiff, crowd-pleasing, God-fearing Quaker rails! Hallelujah.
Still, Rascal Flatts are very convincing in their trade. Their arrangements, regardless of the cookie-cutter copying, the predictability, the lack of lived-in feeling that’s hard to miss even on first listen, and the pressure to churn out hits, are still good enough, and honestly I’d be doing the band an injustice if I labeled them as having sold their soul to the devil purely out of a naked lust for money!
“Unstoppable” boasts crystal-clear production that splits hairs in fusing the individual building blocks of the Rascal Flatts story into a remarkably measured and balanced sonic leaflet, with rich sonic breadth and depth. In other words, color and warmth at the same time. Above the collages, where blankets of interwoven keyboards, piano and violin drift in, with the guitar joining in louder in places, soars the recognizable approach of vocalist Gary LeVox, whose layered, color-rich articulation manages to break up that predictability and the “copy-paste” templated motifs.
Rascal Flatts focus most on seducing their listeners with a selection of ballads, which more or less take the lead over the rest of the material. By the way, for all of you who crave every last bit of rock dilettantism, the guitar pattern in the song Close is a real, honest-to-goodness balm for the ears. We do know which target audience Rascal Flatts are playing to, though. The gray mice of conformism who prop up today’s music industry. It doesn’t matter if you’re talented or not, it doesn’t matter if you’re smart or dumb, and it doesn’t matter how much songwriting insight you can offer the masses. What matters is that you’re bold and you dare. Even if the cavity of your skull is filled with nothing but perforated cork.
This is a new, commercially successful pop rock album from the band. Rascal Flatts discover absolutely nothing in a creative or artistic sense. Super production, exemplary arrangements, the sonic spectrum filled out, singing that’s varied and expressive, and of course music that’s not too loud for the masses’ “demanding” ears, plus guys dressed so nicely that grandmas, little old ladies, moms kneading bread dough and beating dusty rugs at home, and all the girls trying to stir up winds in their abdomens with an immaculate scent of vanilla can admire them. In that respect, Rascal Flatts haven’t missed the mark this time either.
Lineup
Gary LeVox – vocals
Jay DeMarcus – keyboards, bass guitar, backing vocals
Joe Don Rooney – guitar, mandolin, bass guitar
Production
Dann Huff & Rascal Flatts
Track list
1. Love Who You Love
2. Here Comes Goodbye
3. Close
4. Forever
5. She’d Be California
6. Unstoppable
7. Things That Matter
8. Summer Nights
9. Holdin’ On
10. Once
11. Why
