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East Tennessee singer-songwriter Rodney Atkins scored a chart-topper with the title track of this second release, reframing the Irish drinking toast ("May you be in heaven five minutes before the devil knows you're dead") in a modern context and tying it all up in a Celtic/banjo wrapping fit for Keith Urban. It's a solid effort, and performed with unusual aplomb for a newcomer. But as the rest of the album shows, Atkins seems torn between being a thoughtful, poetic craftsman ("Angel's Hands," "Invisibly Shaken," "A Man on a Tractor") and a hero for redneck simpletons. On the opening "These Are My People," he works the family-values-and-small-town stereotypes to death, continuing with "About the South," a Charlie-Daniels-as-God number on which he's backed by an irritating group of chorines that sound suspiciously like the Hee Haw Hunnies. Which path will Atkins ultimately choose, NPR or Wal-Mart? His second single, "Watching You"--a doing-everything-like-Daddy paean--probably tells the tale. --Alanna Nash