Every once in a while someone besides Steve Earle comes along and restores my faith in Country music. I'm very happy to report that the Dixie Chicks have landed such a blow--which is particularly heartening after last months paint-by-the-number release by SheDaisy.

The Dixie Chicks have got it going on--they're great musicians, great singers and, if I may say, they're hotties. Home is chalk full of sing-along melodies, and the music stylings bear more of slant toward bluegrass flavored folksongs than the twang-meets-top-40 that has taken Country music so far away from it's heritage. On the first single, "Long Time Gone," the gals lament this trend by tipping their hat to the forefathers of traditional Country with the lyric: "They sound tired, but they don't sound Haggard, they got money but they don't have Cash, they've got Jr. but they don't have Hank . . . (I must confess that I didn't get it until my second listen). My least favorite track is the cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide," which should just be left alone--there's no improving upon it.

The Chicks co-produced the record and wrote about half of the songs and I admired the fact that the songs that they recorded that were written by men they didnÕt substitute the Pronoun He for She. HeDaisy--these Chicks have balls.