By Emilia Benton

For over a decade, Kenny Chesney has grown as an overall superstar in country music, touring and releasing a new album just about every year.

His latest effort, “Lucky Old Sun,” however, radiates a more quiet and introspective aura complete with acoustic guitars, rather than the country-rock , arena-ready flavor or the beachy, island-life themes that have composed past hits like “When The Sun Goes Down” and “How Forever Feels.”

Chesney, who has been named Entertainer of the Year four times by the Country Music Association, has admitted that this collection of songs is in fact a reflection of his failed marriage to actress Renee Zellweger three years ago. If he’s been feeling down between then and now, we sure couldn’t tell in his last two albums, 2005’s “The Road and the Radio” and 2007’s “Just Who I Am: Poets and Pirates.” Chesney wrote five of the 11 songs on this melancholy album, which seems to contain a theme of strength and survival. Songs such as “Way Down Here,” “Spirit of Storm” and “Nowhere to Go, Nowhere to Be,” tackle his relationship woes head-on, with lyrics like, “Maybe I’ll find someday where the waters aren’t so rough” and “No one can tell the salt water from my tears.”

The album’s opening song, “I’m Alive” is a duet with Dave Matthews, in which Chesney counts his blessings in life by singing, “It’d be easy to add up all the pain/And all the dreams you sat and watched go up in flames/Dwell on the wreckage as it smolders in the rain/ But not me-I’m alive.”

The album’s first single, however, seems to relay the message that Chesney is in fact loving life and is clearly the secret weapon in pleasing Chesney’s regular fan base, which knows and loves him for his upbeat songs rather than those of heartbreak. In “Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven,” Chesney sings about a preacher telling the song’s subject to swear off women and booze before he’s denied entrance.

Chesney similarly seems to be reaching out to loyal listeners with his ocean-culture focus on “Boats” and “Key’s in the Conch Shell.” While most will likely feel as though it’s been done yet again, they’re likely not going to blame him for working to sidestep a bruising breakup with his fan base as he experienced with his wife.

3 Stars