AMG Review of Mission Temple Fireworks Stand

Stephen Thomas Erlewine
All Music Guide

If the cover depicting Sawyer Brown as a bunch of tough yet well-groomed carnies wasn't an indication that their 2005 effort Mission Temple Fireworks Stand captures a rougher, rowdier version of the veteran country-pop band, the opening title cut confirms it. A galloping bluesy rocker, patterned on a gospel-tent singalong but sounding like pure Southern rock, it's a welcome change from the cautious crossover pop of 2002's Can You Hear Me Now and it's a good indication of what the overriding character of the album is. Throughout much of the rest of the album, Sawyer Brown favor loose, lean, humorous country-rockers, whether it's spiking Steven Curtis Chapman's "Tarzan and Jane" with "ooga-chakas" lifted from Jonathan King's take on B.J. Thomas' "Hooked on a Feeling" or doing a spirited cover of the Georgia Satellites' "Keep Your Hands to Yourself." It's as if the group heard the raunchy sounds of Big & Rich and Gretchen Wilson and decided the way to compete was going for straight-ahead Southern rock. Of course, this is Sawyer Brown, the group that first came to fame on #Star Search, so they haven't abandoned their taste for big sentiment, and they have two of their most unbearably mawkish numbers to date here: "With You Daddy," a tale of a father dying from lung cancer, and its flip side, "One Little Heartbeat at a Time," a tale about a newborn baby. These are syrupy, drippy tunes, but they don't slow down the album too much, since most of the record moves along briskly -- the hooks are plentiful, the band sounds tight, and the production is uncluttered, making for their best record in over a decade.