Album review: Court Yard Hounds’ buoyant ‘Amelita’

You could understand if Emily Robison and Martie Maguire sound a bit stressed on their second album as Court Yard Hounds.

When this Texas-based sister duo released its self-titled debut in 2010, it was a low-key side project, a way to keep busy until Natalie Maines -- Robison and Maguire’s bandmate in the Dixie Chicks -- felt ready to return to that platinum-selling country group.

Three years later, though, it’s unclear if the Dixie Chicks will make new music again; Maines put out a rock-flavored solo disc in May, one she said in interviews is much more representative of her creative interests.

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Now a hobby has become the sisters’ occupation.

Yet rather than weighing down Court Yard Hounds, that rearrangement of priorities appears to have put some spring in their step. “Amelita� might be the most buoyant album of 2013, a lighter-than-air set of summery folk-pop tunes with titles like “Sunshine� and “The World Smiles.�

“I’m through with singing the blues,� Robison insists over a delicate banjo lick in the latter song, and much of the rest of “Amelita� bears out her claim, be it the propulsive Tex-Mex shuffle of the title track or the richly harmonized “A Guy Like You,� in which Robison describes her idea of a perfect Sunday afternoon: “I’d be sipping on a gin and tonic / In an oxford with your scent on it.�

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Several other cuts ooze the beery good vibes of “Soak Up the Sun�-era Sheryl Crow.

Things darken ever so slightly in “Aimless Upward,� where Robison compares herself to “a ball of nerves like a ball of twine,� and “Divided,� which seems to track the disintegration of a marriage under the pressure of show business. (In 2008, Robison divorced country singer Charlie Robison.)

But even that one ends on a hopeful note, as though Court Yard Hounds were willing success into being. “When the sun comes up,� Robison sings, “I wanna be there when you wake.�

Court Yard Hounds

“Amelita�

(Columbia)

Three stars

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Twitter: @mikaelwood