Josh Abbott and his band play their hearts out on Small Town Family Dream, sounding rigid with touring experience, yet loose with a confident groove. Musing on his small Texas hometown, “Idalou” opens with walls of rootsy tones and soaring melodies as Abbott’s picturesque lyrics start a conceptual narrative that threads through his third studio album. He inflects a bit like Ryan Adams in the following “I’ll Sing About Mine” while weaving a poetic piece of nostalgia that runs with John Mellencamp’s penchant for glorifying small-town living. Although the production resonates with an expensive sheen throughout, Abbott never succumbs to Nashville assembly-line pop, even on the power ballad “Touch,” where red-dirt grit pokes through shimmering guitars, stadium-mixed drums, and lyrics that fawn over the girl next door. “She Will Be Free” is a more triumphant love song, offering a balance of romantic folk and towering, harmonious twang-rock. Abbott bestows appreciation for Lubbock maverick Terry Allen with stellar covers of his “FFA” and “Flatland Farmer.”