The ‘Dixie’-less Chicks make a thrilling return with a painfully vivid breakup album

The Chicks didn’t need to drop the “Dixie” from their name to raise suspicions about their reverence for American tradition. After all, the band’s previous LP, 2006’s “Taking the Long Way,” explicitly addressed the fallout from Maines’ Bush comments — and was rewarded with five Grammy Awards. Instead, “Gaslighter” turns out to be the Chicks’ most intensely personal effort yet, with song after song apparently inspired by Maines’ 2019 divorce. In the chipper yet sensual “Texas Man,” Maines looks past the pain of betrayal to long for a fellow from her native state “who can feel at home here in the California sand.” If it’s somewhat unexpected here, the tight focus on relationships reflects the Chicks’ understanding that, for women, the personal is always political — that to call out the manipulations of one man is to identify the various systems that combined to enable them. The album was produced by Jack Antonoff, known for his work with Lana Del Rey and Lorde — and with Taylor Swift, who recruited the Chicks to sing backup on last year’s “Lover” — and it features songwriting and instrumental contributions by the likes of St. Vincent’s Annie Clark, Ariel Rechtshaid and the duo of Justin Tranter and Julia Michaels, who’ve written smashes for Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez.