Court Yard Hounds

Strictly speaking, it's only a few feet from stage left or stage right to the centre spotlight. But it took Martie Maguire & Emily Robison a couple of decades to move those couple of yards. As the mainstays of the Dixie Chicks since they formed the group in 1989, the sisters have been familiar faces to many millions of fans, yet just a little mysterious in that familiarity, content as they were to cede the lead vocalist position and remain music's most recognizable "sidewomen". Chicks fans couldn't help but hear those ever-present harmonies and wonder if Emily & Martie might ever come out from hiding in plain sight.

That's just what they've done in their newly hatched incarnation as Court Yard Hounds, with a gorgeously assured debut album that has the siblings sounding like they've been fearless frontwomen all their lives. Is this band a side project? They can live with that label. Or something permanent? Yes, that, too.

The Court Yard Hounds' profoundly evocative songs tell stories woven into melodies that are both individual & universal. Emily is the lead vocalist and primary writer on most of the tracks, although Martie takes over the lead on her own solo composition, "Gracefully". The new music spans sounds of folk; country; rock; plus Americana, and includes a collaboration with Jakob Dylan on "See You in the Spring", the wry tale of a couple from the northernmost & southernmost parts of the country who find their biggest obstacle is climatic.

Texas also asserts itself more contentedly in "The Coast", which celebrates neither the east nor west but south coast, and Skyline, which was inspired by the view of San Antonio from Emily's loft. Faster paced songs range from the self-doubting levity of "Then Again" to the fiery outrage of "Ain't No Son", a song about an angry, disapproving father. Fairytale speaks to romantic enchantment, while there's no happily-ever-after in sight in the breakup songs "April's Love" & "It Didn't Make a Sound".