For the previous decade, Kacey Musgraves has been nation music’s most daring traditionalist — a small-town realist who’s additionally a campy country-disco queen and a folkie who as soon as wrote a tune about smoking weed with John Prine. Her final LP, the 2021 post-divorce document Star-Crossed, was one other reminder that her creative consolation zone is just about wherever she lands on any given second.
On the heels of her largest hit but, final yr’s Zach Bryan duet “I Bear in mind Every part,” there have been a number of semi-predictable steps Musgraves might need taken for LP quantity 5: chiming in on the present folk-stomp mania led by her current duet companions Bryan and Noah Kahan; returning to the hard-nosed nation of her first two albums; taking the bombastic theatrics of Star-Crossed even additional.
Deeper Nicely, Musgraves’ newest, is not one of the above, neither a return to nation camp nor a deeper leap into pop spectacle. As an alternative, it’s a rainy-day singer-songwriter document nearly completely devoid of swooping, radio-friendly hooks that revels within the unglamorous grey gloom of self-interrogation. It’s one other daring swerve, however whereas she typically arrives at real moments of magnificence, the tip result’s uneven.
All through the LP, Musgraves lays out her previous few years of mid-thirties turmoil as an archaeological website to which she has unique entry, pondering big-picture stuff like grief, the afterlife, and predestination. On “The Architect,” a beautiful acoustic ballad, she ponders life’s that means, and questions free will and God’s existence, all in three minutes. On the synth-prayer “Sway,” she wonders if she has the power to give up to the path the wind is blowing her.
Musgraves is unquestionably the one artist, nation or in any other case, who’s making data eclectic sufficient to crib historical Scottish people melodies on one tune and interpolate a hook from rapper JID on the subsequent. Deeper Nicely is Musgraves’ third effort with Ian Fitchuk and Daniel Tashian, and the hallmarks of their collaboration — processed banjo, vocoder thrives — might be heard all through. By and huge, the manufacturing touches, which danger being a crutch, are a lot lighter on a document the place the songs converse for themselves.
However the second half of Deeper Nicely struggles to take care of momentum with a scarcity of dynamics and a string of tunes (“Coronary heart of the Woods,” “Dinner With Pals,” “Anime Eyes”) that don’t fairly maintain their very own. The sparse vulnerability of the manufacturing rapidly exposes any imperfections, and a number of the materials feels extra indifferent than decided.
Distinction that with a spotlight like “Giver/Taker,” an understated reflection on how a lot relationships can ask of two folks, and a tune that bears the fruit of all of the digging Musgraves has carried out. It’s not a big-swing assertion, only a reminder that generally revelations — and profession resets — are OK so long as the songs carry their weight.
