COUNTRY

Rascal Flatts, "Unstoppable" (Lyric Street)

Two songs on the trio's sixth studio CD feature voice-mail messages left undeleted. Another involves a phone call that's never going to come. These aren't commentaries on our relationship with technology, only a reminder that you can be let down even from a distance, and that Rascal Flatts lives for the letdown. Relationships cut short have long animated this group, which thrives in that space just after the rupture: set adrift, bleating for help, hoping sheer volume can heal the wounds. It has made for some of the group's most transcendent songs: "What Hurts the Most" and "These Days."

Frontman Gary LeVox is a shameless, flexible singer, best when at the edge of collapse. But even though the songs here largely stick to familiar lyrical themes (the best is "Here Comes Goodbye"), LeVox sounds uncommitted; there's no tension in his voice. This album is filled with blank and unspecific emotions that, without LeVox's pyrotechnics, are distractingly dull. When Rascal Flatts does emphasize details, it sounds derivative. "Close," with its 1980s-rock guitar, recalls Keith Urban, and "Summer Nights" is a crude rip from Kenny Chesney.

For Rascal Flatts -- the most region- and style-neutral of all mainstream country acts -- specificity is a death knell. So it's no surprise that it retreats to its comfort zone, even when tackling difficult subject matter. The album closer, "Why," is about someone special who left too soon. But in this case that person committed suicide, a topic other singers might whisper around, but one LeVox believes deserves his vocal pomp. Rightly, it turns out: This is the most impassioned song here.

JON CARAMANICA, NEW YORK TIMES

WORLD

Amadou and Mariam, "Welcome to Mali" (Nonesuch)

Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia -- "the blind couple from Mali" -- have been making music together for decades, but didn't reach a large Western audience until the release of their ebullient 2005 breakout album, "Dimanche a Bamako." "Welcome to Mali" is an even more impressive achievement. It further varies the spouses' sonic palette, dabbling in French electro-pop on the opening "Sabali" and intermingling Amadou's hypnotic, rock-influenced guitar lines and Mariam's keening vocals with contributions from a big guest list -- including Somalian rapper K'Naan, Malian kora player Toumani Diabate and Brit rock star Damon Albarn -- without compromising the duo's effervescent identity one iota.

DAN DELUCA, PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER