Many were surprised by the pop and adventurous production of “Star Crossed”the previous album Kacey Musgravesbut the country artist had always been characterized by a much more fluorescent and daring production than what her mother genre has accustomed us to, but in this “Deeper Well” The singer delivers her most austere and stripped-down album, with one eye on Laurel Canyon, what happens is that her tenuous arrangements sound repetitive in some of its 14 songs and the compositional level makes some of them sound very similar to each other. .
The album starts well with “Cardinal”one of the few moments on the album with a bit of a pop orientation, especially in the chorus, although with more fingerpickin’ and much less shine than on their previous album. “Deeper Well” It is confirmed as the best song on the album, an acoustic folk song that grows with each listen, but in the lyrics we are already noticing that whiff of incense, astrology and a meditation tent that takes us back a little.
And from here on, almost nothing changes, acoustic and somewhat harmless mid-tempos, in which Musgraves sings so well with a voice so warm and expressive that it can make songs as dull as “Moving Out” o “Heaven Is” seem more than they are. I have even read someone comparing Musgraves’ new path with Joni Mitchell but I honestly believe that this is closer to Nelly Furtado (to whom she winks in “Cardinal”), Musgraves doesn’t seem to be tearing up inside but rather happy to have found her inner peace, which is very good on a personal level but she doesn’t seem to get enough artistic value out of it.
And it is not as stupid a question as thinking that an artist cannot release a great work while being happy, Musgraves herself released her best album (“Golden Hour”)in the middle of the cloud of love, the problem is listening to some songs as good as “Dinner With Friends” o “Deeper Well” and realize how much talent he has, a couple of songs that could have appeared on “Golden Hour” no problem, and be aware that much more can be asked of Musgraves because he is talented enough to deliver.
The author of “Same Trailer Different Park” doesn’t take any risks here, it’s an album that sounds too monotonous to have 14 songs and just over 40 minutes long, here there could be more things like that end of “Sway” in which he gets into some complicated harmonies and returns to use the vocoder. Although the main problem may be that the general level of the songs is not too high, because if there were 14 songs here of the height of “Slow Burn”, “Oh What A World“ o “Rainbow” We would be talking about something else.