After making a name for themselves as one of the biggest crossover country acts ever, the Dixie Chicks laid low.

The once-blond threesome of vocalist Natalie Maines and sisters Martie Seidel on fiddle and Emily Erwin on banjo is back. This August the Chicks unleashed Home, their latest album since Fly in 1999.

This poignant album starts listeners off with the folksy tune "Long Time Gone," a song not as exciting as Fly's first track, "Ready to Run," but enough to bring a smile to the listener's face. "Travelin' Soldier," the third track, is a nearly six-minute ballad about love lost. Drumming in the background of the song completes the patriotic mood.

After the first three songs with slow tempos, a listener could easily be turned off by Home ­ where are the jumpy tunes about sin and fun? Fortunately, "Truth No. 2" comes after these slow ditties and the velocity of sound pumps up the jam. The song consists of banjo/vocal crescendos and entertaining lyrics: "Swing me way down south/Sing me something brave from your mouth/And I'll bring you/Pearls of water on my hips ..."

The rush continues with the fifth track, "White Trash Wedding." Besides the intriguing title, the song starts with Maines (country fan or not, her voice is solid). Seider and Erwin harmonize on the dialectical line "You can't afford no ring," which immediately charges into a searing banjo line (hey, if anything, attend a concert to see Erwin's banjo-picking).

After to the brilliance of "White Trash Wedding" comes the slow melancholic tune "A Home." The beckoning lyrics "And I listened to my pride/When my heart cried out for you/Now every day I wake again/In a house that might have been/A home/A home" are a bit aggravating and detract from the song's appeal.

When the Dixie Chicks asked a few years ago on Fly what all the love talk was about, they must not have had their next album in mind. Tracks seven, eight and nine are lyrical songs focusing on the hot topic of love. While the love lyrics in "More Love" are neutralized by the impressive mandolin work, "I Believe in Love" is quite possibly the least enjoyable piece on the CD. With redundancy in the extreme, by the end of the painfully slow song, the listener is more than aware that Natalie believes in love.

Following the love triumvirate is the delightful instrumental "Lil' Jack Slade." The song combines fiddle, banjo, rhythm guitar and mandolin, creating a song that makes it impossible to resist bouncing a leg or nodding your head in rhythm to the springy beat.

The lyrics of the second to last song, "Godspeed," automatically make the song enjoyable with lines like: "Dragon tales and the 'water is wide'/Pirates sail and lost boys fly/Fish bite moonbeams every night É Superman's in pajamas on the couch/Goodnight moon, we'll find the mouse." The song is a calm and soothing lullaby and a thoughtful way to approach the end of the CD. The Dixie Chicks finish Home with "Top of the World." While the melody is definitely pleasant with lots of instrumental and vocal variations, the hiatuses get a bit tiring.