Album Review: The Refreshing World of Kacey Musgraves’s Deeper Well
Admittedly, I was not a fan of Kacey Musgraves’s previous album, 2021’s star-crossed. I suppose my limitless love for her 2018 opus, Golden Hour, might have clouded my judgment, but star-crossed never quite landed. Perhaps it simply crossed my path and left. When Musgraves announced her latest album, Deeper Well, I was a little hesitant. Would she be able to match what Golden Hour produced, and could she redeem the pitfalls of star-crossed? Since the release of the titular lead single and the album itself, Musgraves answered those questions with a resounding: “Well, yes!” The breezy, open nature of the record yawns like a spring morning, welcoming all who listen to it into a world of refreshing greenness as if the deeper well leads to a realm of magic, healing, and acceptance.
“Cardinal” opens the record with a Fleetwood Mac-indebted conversation with the little red bird, a harbinger of change and a messenger from the other side according to superstition. It’s always a slam dunk when an artist evokes Stevie Nicks, and as Musgraves grapples with death and change, the song unfurls. “Are you just watching and waiting for spring? Or do you have some kind of magic to bring?” she sings to the cardinal. Immediately we are ushered into a new space, whether that be the blossoming of spring, or into a new state of mind.
Much of the thematic content of Deeper Well is well-trodden land for Musgraves. She sings of finding herself and ridding her life of bad influences on the title track, of anxiety while in love on “Too Good To Be True,” and the passage of time on the meandering “Moving Out.” The album picks up speed on “Giver / Taker,” where Musgraves, over a comforting guitar, sings to her lover that their relationship might not be worth saving if they can’t commit fully to her. It’s a classic scenario, yet the honesty of “Giver / Taker” is what sells the fantasy, and what truly attracts me to good country music and Musgraves in general. “Giver / Taker” leads right into “Sway,” a personal high point of the album. Over droning organs and a picking guitar, Musgraves performs a short ditty on the precarious nature of living, and of rooting yourself to withstand hardship, one of the core lessons of Deeper Well. Then, with a brief pause after the final chorus, she erupts into a choir of self-harmonization, creating a cathedral for the song, from rumbling bass notes to flitting soprano. “I’ll sway,” she hums, embodying the very wind that once rocked her world. The spritely “Dinner with Friends” makes for a great palate cleanser after such a beautiful endeavor, a glinting track concerned with highlighting all the small things that make life worth living, from “the face that somebody makes when you give them a gift” to the smell of a lover’s clothes. To combat the darkness of life, sometimes the secret lies in the mundane, a fact Musgraves is always keen on exploring.
What I truly love about Musgraves and her music is the ease with which she communicates her ideas and the earnestness of her art in the face of perceived cliché. Tracks like “Lonely Millionaire,” chronicling the fate of money-hungry people, or the kitschy “The Architect” and its musings on intelligent design, could read as incredibly trite, if not for the loveliness of her voice and the sincerity in her delivery. Listeners feel her resolve, and so it translates to majestic success. “Heart of the Woods” and “Jade Green,” her turn at the current witchy resurgence in pop music, are instant road trip/hiking anthems. “Heaven Is” plays like a lullaby, evoking images of “white horses in the sky” and lavender roses, dreamy in its intent. Simple guitar guides much of this track before strings come to lift the song to celestial heights. Kacey Musgraves insists on shedding pretense and snobbery, opting for wide-eyed optimism to weather the storms and enjoy the sunshine.
Much of this sincere cliché comes to a head on the magnificent, Hallmark-ready “Anime Eyes.” “When I look at you, I’m always looking through anime eyes,” she sings to her love, conjuring “Miyazaki skies” and Sailor Moon. Her love for classic anime is evident on her social pages, and to have her translate it into such a campy, perfect ballad is satisfying for longtime fans of both her and Ghibli, such as myself. It’s one of those “if you get it, you get it” tracks, but one worth trying out in earnest.
With an album so invested in healing, exploring the beauty of life, and coming to terms with the negative, there’s no better closer than “Nothing to be Scared Of.” As if wrapping up all she’s learned, Kacey is ready to shirk her bad patterns, calling back to “Deeper Well,” and encourage her partner to do the same, getting rid of those “demons in the mirror.” In a striking line, she comforts the doubts of her paramour: “Holding tight to who you are, like someone’s gonna take it/ Bubble wrap around your heart like someone’s gonna break it.” The plain delivery carries the weight of the sentiment: that trauma might never truly leave, but with the right person, the heaviness of life is eased enough to enjoy all that surrounds you. There’s no other way I could see this album end. Once you’re ready to drop your bags and dive into that deeper well, the whole world opens, from blue skies, to jade-green bracelets set to protect you. Just make sure you’re doing it for yourself. As Kacey sings: “No regrets, baby.”
