Love & Light [2 LP]

by Maddie & Tae

Overview

Nashville duo Maddie & Tae are your confident big sisters and an unstoppable country-pop force on their fourth album, 2025's horse-powered Love & Light. Heralded by the saucy, emancipated "Kissing Cowboys," the album builds smartly upon the wry female empowerment of the duo's subversive 2014 hit "Girl in a Country Song" without losing a handle on the believably rootsy, down-home qualities that helped make 2020's The Way It Feels and 2022's two-volume Through the Madness so compelling. It's a one-two punch the pair land consistently throughout Love & Light, an album so chock-full of radio-ready bangers that at least half of the record's songs would be the anchor single for any other artist's album. Of course, it doesn't hurt that Maddie Font and Taylor Tae Kerr are blessed with big, ringing, whiskey-and-cinnamon voices that veritably plow through the album's twangy country-rock arrangements. The set also benefits from savvy production via longtime collaborator (and Taylor's husband) Josh Kerr, as well as Chris LaCorte and Corey Crowder. They all bring a crisp, high-fidelity studio vibe, yet one that is punctuated by lustrous organic instrumental contributions by noted Nashville bluegrass and country luminaries like Bryan Sutton, Danny Rader, and Kris Donegan, among others. Cuts like the opening "Fall in Love & Find Out," "One Hit Wonders," and the aforementioned "Kissing Cowboys" are the kind of perfect country anthems that get stuck in your head and leave you smiling with their cheeky turns of phrase. They even thread the needle between Christian and secular pop on "Only Jesus," somehow making a song about cutting a bad lover out of your life sound like the Lord's work. They sing, "I may have a cross hanging 'round my neck, but don't be surprised boy, I said what I said." There's a feeling that Maddie & Tae have matured into their own skins on Love & Light and have become the strong women they both want to be and want to support in the world. There are massively emotional moments here, especially when the duo play the role of wiser older sisters looking out for their girlfriends, as on the sparkling "Somebody Will," a song that marries the pure harmonies of the Everly Brothers with the stadium-sized diva wallop of Adele. They further underline their got-your-back energy on "Heart They Didn't Break," paying tribute to friends that really show up, while harmonizing against a backdrop of pickup-truck pedal steel and acoustic guitars. One of the magical skills Maddie & Tae have is ably subverting musical categories, as on the ebullient disco-soul number "Drunk Girls in Bathrooms," a song so immediately hooky and likeable it transcends genre in a way few country artists have done, save for Dolly Parton, Shania Twain, and Miranda Lambert. With Love & Light, Maddie & Tae add themselves to that list of crossover icons whose music will win the country faithful, all while rounding up everyone else in the process. ~ Matt Collar

Product Details

Release Date:	05/02/2025
Label:	Mercury Nashville
UPC:	0602475870708

Tracks

Disc 1

1. Fall in Love & Find Out
2. Any Kinda Lovin'
3. One Hit Wonders
4. Heart They Didn't Break
5. Only Jesus
6. Free Like
7. Down That Road
8. Kissing Cowboys

Disc 2

9. Somebody Will
10. Girl in Alabama
11. Ain't Enough
12. What a Woman Can Do
13. Drunk Girls in Bathrooms
14. Chasing Babies & Raising Dreams
15. Sad Girl Summer
16. Love & Light

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Maddie & Tae   Primary Artist