Heartland Highway

Personnel: Ken Block (vocals, acoustic guitar); Andrew Copeland (vocals); Ryan Newell (acoustic guitar, electric guitar, banjo, mandolin, background vocals); Jett Beres (piano, bass guitar); Mark Trojanowski (drums).
Audio Mixer: Chip Matthews.
Recording information: Best Western Hotel, Gainesville, FL (02/2010-03/2010); Bob And Cindy Carnes Condo (02/2010-03/2010); Ryan's Basement Studio, Atlanta, GA (02/2010-03/2010); The Tin Ear, Nashville, TN (02/2010-03/2010); Vibe Studio, Nashville, TN (02/2010-03/2010); Best Western Hotel, Gainesville, FL (04/2010-05/2010); Bob And Cindy Carnes Condo (04/2010-05/2010); Ryan's Basement Studio, Atlanta, GA (04/2010-05/2010); The Tin Ear, Nashville, TN (04/2010-05/2010); Vibe Studio, Nashville, TN (04/2010-05/2010); Best Western Hotel, Gainesville, FL (05/2010); Bob And Cindy Carnes Condo (05/2010); Ryan's Basement Studio, Atlanta, GA (05/2010); The Tin Ear, Nashville, TN (05/2010); Vibe Studio, Nashville, TN (05/2010); Best Western Hotel, Gainesville, FL (06/2010); Bob And Cindy Carnes Condo (06/2010); Ryan's Basement Studio, Atlanta, GA (06/2010); The Tin Ear, Nashville, TN (06/2010); Vibe Studio, Nashville, TN (06/2010).
Photographers: Jett Beres; Ken Block; Ryan Newell.
There may be no more appropriate title for a Sister Hazel album than Heartland Highway. The group is one of those unheralded working bands that keep traveling up and down the American highway, never straying far from their initial blueprint but satisfying the devoted year in and year out. Heartland Highway, like the seven albums that precede it, will satisfy those fans but that doesn't mean the band is coasting. There is ambition here in the three-part closing suite "Lessons in Love, Hope, and Faith," a triptych of love and loss and the road that's the spiritual anchor of the album, and the album overall plays as a song cycle where the bandmembers attempt to come to terms with a life lived on the road. These subtle thematic differences are enough to make Heartland Highway something a little more than just another Sister Hazel record. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine