It's Not Big It's Large

Lost Highway Records

A-

Get your mind out of the gutter. The title of the new Lyle Lovett album is just clarifying that while his band has many musicians, they aren't doing big-band swing music.

This time around, however, it seems they're doing everything but that. From the opening jazz instrumental Tickle Toe to the gospel inflections of Make It Happy, this disc features Lovett at his most eclectic. Some offshoots are more radical than anything he has done previously; other songs sound so classically Lyle Lovett that they could have fit in on any album in his career, especially The Alley Song, with a tone that is very close to his superb early song Nobody Knows Me.

I Will Rise Up/Ain't No More Cane is one of Lovett's most ambitious works, clocking in at more than seven minutes, with the singer defiantly refusing to stand down - his version of Tom Petty's I Won't Back Down, delivered with a vengeance. But Lovett's tongue-in-cheek humor still permeates the album in songs such as All Downhill From Here and Make It Happy, though there's still room for plenty of heartache in This Traveling Around.

Lovett has a great life, as he notes in All Downhill From Here, and It's Not Big It's Large is yet another reminder that he's one of the finest singers and songwriters this country has ever produced. It almost feels as if he is taken for granted as he continues to create timeless, brilliant songs.