Kacey Musgraves’ Deeper Well is an extraordinary album that demarcates her as an artist of timeless appeal
It has been 6 years since the release of Kacey Musgraves’ career-changing album Golden Hour that earned her the GRAMMY award for Album of the Year, alongside the CMA for Album of the Year. The record was widely heralded and critically acclaimed, earning Musgraves a legion of fans outside the country genre, in which she rooted her fan-base. Her following album star-crossed faced controversy in its categorisation – the album was disqualified from all country music categories at the 2022 GRAMMY awards. Now, 3 years after that album’s release, Musgraves returns this Friday with her fifth studio album – Deeper Well – that feels like a continued exploration of the parameters of genre outside, but not excluding, the genre that shunned her.
Deeper Well feels like the majestic return of an artist who has a full grasp of who she is both as a person and as an artist. One who refuses to be limited, either personally or artistically. For the record, Musgraves once again teamed up with Daniel Tashian and Ian Fitchuk, to create an album that explores both her own musicality and sonic touchstones, but also her own perceptions of love, relationships and her own interiority.
On, Deeper Well, Musgraves digs her heels in deeper into folksier sounds that paint new sonic brushstrokes into her catalogue. These are often to accompany songs that divert from country’s usual themes of heartbreak and loss into songs that seem to explore her spirituality and outlook on the world. So on album opener, ‘Cardinal,’ she paints the first brushstrokes of her new sonic landscape, with folksier additions, including harp touches, as she sings, seemingly, to a bird about what message they are coming to bring her. ‘I saw the sign or an omen.’ It’s a song about the mystery of life and fate and is a powerfully evocative opener. Later, she explores that spiritual side further on ‘Jade Green,’ where she sings of wanting “to bathe in the moonlight til I’m fully charged.” Most vitally, though is later track ‘The Architect,’ where Musgraves questions the very fabric of the world, “I don’t understand all the and plans / can I speak to the architect?,” ending in the wistful conclusion “Is there an architect?” These touches round out the edges of a folkier sounding record that feels like a natural evolution from Golden Hour, allowing her to straddle a space in between country, folk and pop.
Still, Musgraves returns inevitably to themes of heartbreak and hurt that are so intrinsic to country music. On, ‘Moving Out,’ she offers a pensive and lingering take on an ending. ‘A couple real big fights that we had / I cried but it was hard to stay / We had good times, can’t deny it… We’re moving out.’ It’s a slow, expansive track that follows title track – ‘Deeper Well’ – one of the strongest points on the record that acts as the focal point for Musgraves’ inner parlance throughout. ‘So I’m sayin’ goodbye to the people / That I feel are real good at wastin’ my time / No regrets, baby, I just think that maybe / You go your way and I’ll go mine… I’ve got to take care of myself / I found a deeper well.’ It tells the story about being brave enough to pursue a greater love, and being empowered to put yourself first, and is a powerful statement of intent following on from star-crossed.
This exploration of love and its complexities is a thread that runs through Deeper Well. So, on ‘Giver Taker,’ she explores the balance of power in relationships. ‘I would give everything that you wanted and I would never ask for any of it back.’ It’s a powerful look at how an imbalance of commitment to a relationship can destroy its foundations.
What seems clear in the record is Musgraves care and commitment to put herself out there again both sonically and in love. There is a lot more focus on love than in her previous ‘divorce album’ star-crossed. On ‘Too Good to Be True,’ Musgraves gingerly puts herself back out there to love again. ‘Please don’t make me regret / Opening up that part of myself / That I’ve been scared to give again / Be good to me, and I’ll be good to you / But please don’t be too good to be true.’ Sonically, it feels closer to Golden Hour, a delightfully simple track, filled with touches of harmony that enliven the track. With ‘Sway’ and ‘Dinner With Friends’ she offers another simple, hopeful look at love. The former is a lilting, delightful melody about one day changing and adapting to love. ‘Maybe one day, I’ll learn how to sway.’ It’s compelling, sweeping you into its whirlpool – into love as does ‘Dinner With Friends,’ a quieter, plaintive piano ballad about the joy in the small moments including ‘the shape of his eyes, the shape of his nose / The cute way he mispronounces certain woods,’ even as she addresses them as things she would ‘miss from the other side.’ The tentative return to love after pain is a theme that she returns to on the final track on the record ‘Nothing To Be Scared Of,’ where she reassures a potential lover of the safety of her embrace, even amidst the fear of screwing up a relationship in its infancy. ‘Come to me and drop your bags and I’ll help you unpack them / you’re the only one I want to give my love / there’s nothing to be scared of.’
Even despite the way she views love as a fragile thing to be approached tentatively, there is a lot in the record that sees love as a source of comfort and safety. So, on the plucky track ‘Heart of the Woods,’ she sings to a lover ‘When there is danger we’ll take care of each other / In the heart of the woods.’ It’s one of the richest sonic landscapes created on the record, filled with folksy touches that enliven the track, where the more experimental duo of songs ‘Heaven Is’ and ‘Anime Eyes’ see Musgraves sing to a lover about their effect on her. The former offers a lilting lullaby, exploring the joy they have brought to her life, ‘If all I have is the light in your eyes / That’s what heaven is.’ The culmination of these threads seems to come together on ‘Lonely Millionaire’ that shows the downside of fame and fortune, delivered in a slow and sultry mix that sees Musgraves question, ‘Who wants to be a lonely millionaire?’ It’s a question that not only highlights the emptiness of wealth without meaningful relationships, but posits love as the real source of wealth.
In a time where even artists with the power and pull in the industry of Beyoncé are faced with controversy for creating a ‘country album,’ it is questionable whether there is even a point to hard genre boundaries, given the backlash they ultimately ensure for the artist. Where artists like Musgraves blur those boundaries and push genres into new territories, shouldn’t the identity they choose be the one we listen to? Deeper Well asserts Musgraves as an artist of universal appeal, a songwriter of real depth, one who is unable to be pigeonholed either aesthetically, sonically or lyrically. Deeper Well is a quieter album, using the lyrical depth of Golden Hour and its sonic packaging, with touches of her debut, country material to decorate for good measure and feels rich both in its depth and the wealth of sonic inspiration from which Musgraves draws upon, both from within and outside the country genre. A masterful record.
