Simply over a decade in the past, Kacey Musgraves emerged as a pristine untouched tone in nation track – a mid-tempo storyteller with an improbable acuity each in her lyrics and in her instrumentation, understanding simply when to select up the harmonica, whistle a song or split out the vocoder.
Within the years and award-winning albums since, she’s confirmed herself to be malleable: weaving disco-pop into her narratives the place becoming (maximum memorably on “High Horse” from 2018’s “Golden Hour,” the love-forward shed that earned her novel of the week on the 2019 Grammys ), recording in Spanish ( “Gracias a la Vida” from 2021’s official separation file, “star-crossed” ), and maximum not too long ago, recording a trait with Zach Bryan, which has develop into her first Refuse. 1 crash (the sentimental “I Be mindful The whole thing,” one of AP’s picks for best of 2023.) In 2024, it has led to “Deeper Well,” a muted folk record with a warm kind of profundity.
The album opens with the ’60s folk-inspired “Cardinal,” a similar tone to its closer, “Nothing to be Scared Of” – acoustic guitars and Musgraves’ open-hearted narratives delivered through her glassy vocal delivery. Much of the album follows the format, but with quite a few surprises.
Those looking for capital-C country through Musgraves’ matured folk filter could skip to “The Architect,” a masterful acoustic rumination on a higher power. “Sometimes I look in the mirror and wish I could make a request/Could I pray it away? Am I shapeable clay? Or is this as good as it gets?,” she asks.
On “Anime Eyes,” Musgraves describes a “Miyazaki sky” and talk-sings her way through a kaleidoscopic, psychedelic detour. “Lonely Millionaire” is a surprising near-reimagination of Atlanta rapper JID’s “Kody Blu 31.” Seriously: he received a songwriting credit for the song, she does not rap, and it’s a weeper.
For lovers following Musgraves’ occupation for the reason that very starting, “Deeper Well” is a famous evolution from “Follow Your Arrow,” the celebratory country-as-heck LGBT+ anthem from her 2013 debut novel “Same Trailer Different Park.” But the spirit is the same: Musgraves has long pushed the boundaries of her formative genre – whether its touring with Willie Nelson and Katy Perry – or when she made sure her co-writers Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally took the stage when she won the Country Music Awards Song of the Year Award in 2014 for her first hit; it was the first time two openly gay people stood on the CMA stage for an award. That she chooses to move her needle, here, in a softer direction feels fitting.
Sometimes, that means hyper-specific language of the current moment, like in the fingerpicking title track “Deeper Well.” “My Saturn has returned/when I turned 27,” she sings, referencing the widespread astrological conceit that still seems on Ariana Grande’s original novel, “eternal sunshine.” “Everything started to change/Took a long time, but I learned.” There’s some other series, “You’ve got dark energy,” that feels extra like a textual content message than an efficient lyric — and runs the danger of courting itself the year the listener hears it — however that, too, is usually a device. Right here, Musgraves is fascinated by one of those existential bloodletting, revealing the depths of her ideas about love and loss of life trickle out in gorgeous-sounding songs with candy melodies.
Like within the standout “Dinner with Friends,” her tear-jerkin’ reaction to “The Sound of Music” vintage “My Favorite Things,” by which Musgraves, atop piano and acoustic guitar, sings about the entire issues she loves — and can omit — “from the other side” of age.
“My home state of Texas/The sky there, the horses and dogs,” she sings, “Intimate convos that go way into the night/The way that sun on my floor makes a pattern of light.”
As a complete, “Deeper Well” is a soft-pedaled album, but also one that celebrates her humanity. It’s a nice change of pace — arguably the best kind — one with some familiarity.
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