As tweakers of Nashville orthodoxies, they’re goofy and fun, but clumsy. As a country duo, the members of Sugarland are surefooted. This all amounts to an unwelcome unraveling of the Sugarland formula. Most peculiar is the reggae patois she slips into on “Every Girl Like Me” and the single “Stuck Like Glue.” She softens its punch by pulling away from some syllables on “All We Are.” On “Tonight,” she adopts a breathy, slightly gothic 1980s theatricality. Nettles is in retreat, taking pains to undermine her monster of a voice, perhaps the best in country music today. Nettles’s show, and it’s been an impressive one since its 2004 debut, “Twice the Speed of Life.” But on “The Incredible Machine,” the fourth Sugarland album, Ms. Sugarland is a duo, though really only in name: it’s Ms. Their brand of country-pop is shiny and overwhelmingly optimistic, filling and simple. Kristian Bush, her partner, plays sweet, cheerful guitar. Jennifer Nettles, the lead singer, has a showstopping voice, a slick howl that feels effortless. It isn’t especially equipped for the task. No country act struggles more with its countryness than Sugarland.
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