Brooks & Dunn, though, manage to transcend those generic conventions, enough to make you forgive their occasional laziness. "When We Were Kings" is a disarmingly sensitive (and briskly rocking) Vietnam narrative, in which Tommy's number comes up and he leaves behind his best friend and girlfriend; "I took her out after that a couple of times," the pal admits, "but we always just wound up talking about him." In the title track, another sturdy rocker full of well-drawn memories, Dunn describes how he "learned that happiness on earth ain't just for high achievers." And the sly transgression in unlisted closer "Holy War," a lucid indictment of wack TV-preacher politics set to a tent-revival gallop, almost neutralizes the preceding nonsense. A beer for their steel horses, please.