Music Review: Kacey Musgraves’ ‘Deeper Well’ trades country-pop hooks for deep, folk-y meditation

This image released by Interscope Records shows "Deeper Well" by Kacey Musgraves. (Interscope via AP)

This image released by Interscope Records shows “Deeper Well” by Kacey Musgraves. (Interscope via AP)

Just over a decade ago, Kacey Musgraves emerged as a fresh new voice in country music – a mid-tempo storyteller with an incredible acuity both in her lyrics and in her instrumentation, knowing just when to pick up the harmonica, whistle a tune or break out the vocoder.

In the years and award-winning albums since, she’s proven herself to be malleable: weaving disco-pop into her narratives where fitting (most memorably on “High Horse” from 2018’s “Golden Hour,” the love-forward release that earned her album of the year at the 2019 Grammys ), recording in Spanish ( “Gracias a la Vida” from 2021’s divorce record, “star-crossed” ), and most recently, recording a feature with Zach Bryan, which has become her first No. 1 hit (the sentimental “I Remember Everything,” 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 fans following Musgraves’ career since the very beginning, “Deeper Well” is a noted evolution from “Follow Your Arrow,” the celebratory country-as-heck LGBT+ anthem from her 2013 debut album “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 popular astrological conceit that also appears on Ariana Grande’s latest album, “eternal sunshine.” “Everything started to change/Took a long time, but I learned.” There’s another line, “You’ve got dark energy,” that feels more like a text message than an effective lyric — and runs the risk of dating itself the moment the listener hears it — but that, too, could be a tool. Here, Musgraves is interested in a kind of existential bloodletting, revealing the depths of her thoughts about love and death trickle out in gorgeous-sounding songs with sweet melodies.

Like in the standout “Dinner with Friends,” her tear-jerkin’ response to “The Sound of Music” classic “My Favorite Things,” in which Musgraves, atop piano and acoustic guitar, sings about all of the things she loves — and will miss — “from the other side” of life.

“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 whole, “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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