Mission Temple Fireworks Stand (CD - 2005)

Personnel: Hobie Hubbard (vocals, keyboards); Mark Miller (vocals); Jim Scholten (bass guitar); Joe "Curley" Smyth (drums).

Additional personnel: Joe Erkman (guitar).

Audio Mixer: Jeff Balding.

Recording information: The Sound Kitchen Franklin TN; Zoo Studio, Franklin TN.

Photographer: Marina Chavez.

Sawyer Brown crank up the volume on 2005's MISSION TEMPLE FIREWORKS STAND, angling for a sound that owes more to cowboy-hat-wearing country rock than it does to the mainstream country-pop the band is usually associated with. The title track, a boogie-fueled, gospel-inspired rave-up, suggests that Sawyer Brown have taken a decisive step toward the rough-and-ready, a notion confirmed by their punchy cover of the Georgia Satellites' "Keep Your Hands to Yourself." Still evident are the band's pop sensibility (the country ballad "They Don't Understand") and their sentimental story-songs ("With You Daddy"), but the wild and wooly guitar-fueled antics add a welcome balance to this veteran band's country style. minimize