Brooks & Dunn: Steers & Stripes : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

If there's a knock on Brook & Dunn, it's that they don't veer from their tried and true formula for turbo-charged honky-tonk. It's something of a weightless criticism, as the pair have hit on something that musicians can spend careers trying to discover -- a style. What they do with a new album every other year, isn't so much altering a formula, but rather working subtle variations within it. Steers & Stripes' opener, "Only in America" finds B&D burning as they do so well in an advertisement waiting to happen. But as is frequently the case, Brooks & Dunn are subtly more effective when they slow things down just a shade, and they work the parameters of the slower gear with precision. From the Caribbean-tinged "Deny Deny Deny," a smarter, funnier, less-absurd spin on Shaggy's "It Wasn't Me" to the tradition-minded "Lucky Me, Lonely You" to the fragile "I Fall," Brooks & Dunn have again put together a collection of songs that find them using their familiar primary colors to create vibrant new ones, rather than moving on to a new medium. (ANDREW DANSBY -- April 24, 2001)