In Brief

BRAD PAISLEY
5th Gear
Arista Nashville

Smart, low-profile Nashvillean Paisley's sixth album features not one but two songs about how adulthood beats adolescence -- four if the two car songs count. Think he's worried something might be gaining on him? The broad, small-minded attack on a MySpace nerd proves it. Most of the adulthood songs are aces anyway, however. And then there's the priceless "Ticks," where he offers to check his new lady friend for the infectious pest of that name.

Rolling Stone, June 28, 2007