I've been thinking about how I'd describe this, the first Dixie Chicks album I've listened to in full, and I think that the best way of putting it is 'middle of the road fm radio country'. But that needs some explanation. 'Middle of the road' is normally a derisive sobriquet, but that's not the sense in which I mean it here, because I think that Taking The Long Way is actually very good - rather, I'm getting at the familiarity of the band's sound, at the radio-ready sheen of their songwriting and songs (though of course their falling out with US country radio has been well-documented: eg, here).
It's a set of sturdily-constructed, tightly performed country rockers, and one gets the sense that the Dixie Chicks are a really professional outfit - that they know just what they're doing. And, again, I don't mean this in a belittling sense - to suggest that they're simply going through the motions. Rather, it's as if they've honed their craft to a very fine edge, but that 'edge' is more in the way of a broad scoop of 'of the moment' country music than a really individually distinctive point - but they do it so well that one doesn't hold it against them. Highlights include the early dreaminess of "Easy Silence", the wide open roads anthem "Voice Inside My Head" (which has a bit of Sheryl Crow to it), and the swinging "I Like It".
