After taking a hiatus to pursue a series of high profile solo projects Grammy Award-winning superstar duo Sugarland (Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush) return with Bigger, their first album since 2010 and sixth full-length effort overall. As fans have come to expect from Sugarland, Bigger embodies the musical spirit of the band and contains tracks both uptempo and upbeat as well as powerful message songs that address specific issues facing the world.

“Our hopefulness and our sparkiness and our joy is one of the things I think we do uniquely well, especially in the country format,” says Jennifer of the set’s sunnier material. “We offer that in a unique way.” The bold graphics of album cover conjure up images of a circus tent, representative of both that fun side and some of the more enigmatic content on the project. “This album has a whole bunch of mystery,” adds Kristian, talking about the layers of production and the nuanced songwriting. “I have entire pints of blood in that thing, but I still don’t know where it all came from, and I love that.”

Co-produced by Kristian, Jennifer, and Julian Raymond, the follow-up to their last studio set The Incredible Machine features “Still The Same,” among its 11 new songs, ten of which were written by Nettles and Bush. The exception is “Babe,” co-written by Taylor Swift and Pat Monahan of Train. Swift, labelmates with Sugarland at BMLG, also appears on the song.