Deeper Well
“My Saturn has returned,” the cosmic country singer-songwriter proclaimed to announce her fifth album (apologies to *A Very Kacey Christmas*), *Deeper Well*. If you’re reading this, odds are you know what that means: About every 30 years, the sixth planet from the sun comes back to the place in the sky where it was when you were born, and with it, ostensibly, comes growth. At 35, the chill princess of rule-breaking country/pop/what-have-you has caught up with Saturn and taken its lessons to heart. OUT: energy vampires, self-sabotaging habits, surface-level conversations. IN: jade stones, moon baths, long dinners with friends, listening closely to the whispered messages of the cosmos. (As for the wake-and-bake sessions she mentions on the title track—out, but wistfully so.) Musgraves followed her 2018 breakthrough album, the gently trippy *Golden Hour*, with 2021’s *star-crossed*, a divorce album billed as a “tragedy in three parts,” where electronic flourishes added to the drama. On *Deeper Well*, the songwriter’s feet are firmly planted on the ground, reflected in its warm, wooden, organic instrumentation—fingerpicked acoustic guitar, banjo, pedal steel. Here, Musgraves turns to nature for the answers to her ever-probing questions. “Heart of the Woods,” a campfire sing-along inspired by mycologist Paul Stamets and his *Fantastic Fungi* documentary, looks to mushroom networks beneath the forest floor for lessons on connectivity. And on “Cardinal,” a gorgeous ode to her late friend and mentor John Prine in the paisley mode of The Mamas & The Papas, potential dispatches from the beyond arrive as a bird outside her window in the morning. As Musgraves’ trust in herself and the universe deepens, so do her songwriting chops. On “Dinner With Friends,” a gratitude journal entry given the cosmic country treatment, she honors her roots in perfectly sly Musgravian fashion: “My home state of Texas, the sky there, the horses and dogs, but none of their laws.” And on the simple, searching “The Architect,” she condenses the big mysteries of human nature into one elegant, good-natured question: “Can I pray it away, am I shapeable clay/Or is this as good as it gets?”
The country star’s sixth album is an endlessly pretty back-to-basics record focused on growing and bettering oneself. It’s a balm, even if her sharp songwriting has dulled a bit.
On the spiritual and cloudy landscape of Deeper Well, Kacey Musgraves is determined to find lasting peace by looking back without a grudge, and moving on with more caution than before.
On her sixth album, Kacey Musgraves tries to move on – but has to work through musical and lyrical missteps on the way
Kacey Musgraves returns with a balanced, serene new LP that draws in equal measure from the sounds of ‘70s folk and adult contemporary.
Grammy-winning country artist revels in Laurel Canyon folk and psychedelic pop on her fantastic sixth album
The US country singer’s sixth album finds her maturing musically and philosophically, though veering towards the generic
On her sixth studio album, ‘Deeper Well,’ Kacey Musgraves digs into both her psyche and the sounds of folk music.
Kacey Musgraves, like all of us, is just trying to learn how to sway in the face of life's challenges, and she chooses to gift them to us in the form of songs.
Deeper Well by Kacey Musgraves album review by Ethan Rebalkin for Northern Transmissions. The singer/songwriter's LP drops on March 15th
The crossover star’s sixth album opens with a spectacular one-two of the most beautiful songs you’ll hear all year – but the loved-up mood and back-to-nature wonder becomes twee
The seven-time Grammy-winning country star follows up a divorce album with a record about falling in love and finding herself anew
Deeper Well features Musgraves taking another creative turn. Ring it up as another jewel in the crown