Little Big Town photo courtesy of Capitol Nashville.

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Indeed, although it may seem odd for a 2007 CMA Horizon Award nominee, Little Big Town celebrates their 10th anniversary in 2008. Their roots go back even further, to when Karen and Kimberly began singing together while students at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Karen moved to Nashville in 1994, and Kimberly followed a year later. The two invited old Alabama friend Jimi to join them in 1998, and Phillip completed the band the same year.

They've been inseparable ever since, despite—or maybe because of—the diversity in their personalities and styles. "You add all these different elements together," Kimberly says, "and we have something bigger than all of us."

Little Big Town shares lead vocal duties more or less equitably and writes almost all their songs together with Kirkpatrick in a free-for-all collaborative effort. "We all weigh in with strong opinions," Karen says. "It makes each of us better, and it definitely makes us better as a group."

That approach made The Road to Here one of 2005's best-received albums and established the band as an innovative, distinctive force in country music—and beyond. Fleetwood Mac mastermind Lindsay Buckingham has performed with the group, and rock legend John Mellencamp invited the group to open shows for him and sing backup vocals on his album Freedom's Road.

Mellencamp imparted some advice that all four took to heart. "We were on his bus one night and he said, 'Have y'all written "Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground" yet? Have you written "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain"? Because that's the standard, and you guys can do it. You can turn this town on its ear,'" Karen recalls. "He was challenging us not to settle, and to write things that matter."

A Place to Land is full of things that matter. There's the celebration of the connection between band and fans on the sun-kissed first single "I'm With The Band." There's the uplift of "To Know Love," "Vapor" and the title song, which conveys a positive message about community and finding your strength. There is the sympathetic treatment of emotional abuse in "Evangeline," which exemplifies the way the group has sought to reflect its audience's concerns despite the domestic bliss that has taken root in the Little Big Town camp.

"There's some happiness, but there's still some reality in the things that we've written," says Kimberly, who grew up in the foothills of Georgia's Blue Ridge Mountains. "We all still live real lives, you know. We have our experiences that we'll always cherish, even the very difficult ones. People go through those things every day, and we still have things to say about that."

Perhaps the most emphatic message A Place to Land carries within its grooves is that the four individuals who make up Little Big Town have never been more united, even as their horizons have expanded beyond imagining. Now they're ready to take on the world together all over again.

"There's a special connection between the four of us, for whatever reason," Jimi says. "Who knows why that happens? You like to think that maybe it was meant to be, and I really do believe that. This group of people came together for a purpose."