Kacey Musgraves’ ‘Deeper Well’ Review: A Daring Swerve

For the past decade, Kacey Musgraves has been country music’s most daring traditionalist — a small-town realist who’s also a campy country-disco queen and a folkie who once wrote a song about smoking weed with John Prine. Her last LP, the 2021 post-divorce record Star-Crossed, was another reminder that her artistic comfort zone is pretty much wherever she lands on any given moment.

On the heels of her biggest hit yet, last year’s Zach Bryan duet “I Remember Everything,” there were several semi-predictable steps Musgraves might have taken for LP number five: chiming in on the current folk-stomp mania led by her recent duet partners Bryan and Noah Kahan; returning to the hard-nosed country of her first two albums; taking the bombastic theatrics of Star-Crossed even further. 

Deeper Well, Musgraves’ latest, is none of the above, neither a return to country camp nor a deeper leap into pop spectacle. Instead, it’s a rainy-day singer-songwriter record almost entirely devoid of swooping, radio-friendly hooks that revels in the unglamorous gray gloom of self-interrogation. It’s another daring swerve, but while she often arrives at genuine moments of beauty, the end result is uneven.

Throughout the LP, Musgraves lays out her past few years of mid-thirties turmoil as an archaeological site to which she has exclusive access, pondering big-picture stuff like grief, the afterlife, and predestination. On “The Architect,” a gorgeous acoustic ballad, she ponders life’s meaning, and questions free will and God’s existence, all in three minutes. On the synth-prayer “Sway,” she wonders if she has the strength to surrender to the direction the wind is blowing her.

Musgraves is surely the only artist, country or otherwise, who is making records eclectic enough to crib ancient Scottish folk melodies on one song and interpolate a hook from rapper JID on the next. Deeper Well is Musgraves’ third effort with Ian Fitchuk and Daniel Tashian, and the hallmarks of their collaboration — processed banjo, vocoder flourishes — can be heard throughout. By and large, the production touches, which risk being a crutch, are much lighter on a record where the songs speak for themselves.

But the second half of Deeper Well struggles to maintain momentum with a lack of dynamics and a string of tunes (“Heart of the Woods,” “Dinner With Friends,” “Anime Eyes”) that don’t quite hold their own. The sparse vulnerability of the production quickly exposes any imperfections, and some of the material feels more detached than determined.

Contrast that with a highlight like “Giver/Taker,” an understated reflection on how much relationships can ask of two people, and a song that bears the fruit of all the digging Musgraves has done. It’s not a big-swing statement, just a reminder that sometimes revelations — and career resets — are OK as long as the songs carry their weight.

For the past decade, Kacey Musgraves has been country music’s most daring traditionalist — a small-town realist who’s also a campy country-disco queen and a folkie who once wrote a song about smoking weed with John Prine. Her last LP, the 2021 post-divorce record Star-Crossed, was another reminder that her artistic comfort zone is pretty much wherever she lands on any given moment.

On the heels of her biggest hit yet, last year’s Zach Bryan duet “I Remember Everything,” there were several semi-predictable steps Musgraves might have taken for LP number five: chiming in on the current folk-stomp mania led by her recent duet partners Bryan and Noah Kahan; returning to the hard-nosed country of her first two albums; taking the bombastic theatrics of Star-Crossed even further. 

Deeper Well, Musgraves’ latest, is none of the above, neither a return to country camp nor a deeper leap into pop spectacle. Instead, it’s a rainy-day singer-songwriter record almost entirely devoid of swooping, radio-friendly hooks that revels in the unglamorous gray gloom of self-interrogation. It’s another daring swerve, but while she often arrives at genuine moments of beauty, the end result is uneven.

Throughout the LP, Musgraves lays out her past few years of mid-thirties turmoil as an archaeological site to which she has exclusive access, pondering big-picture stuff like grief, the afterlife, and predestination. On “The Architect,” a gorgeous acoustic ballad, she ponders life’s meaning, and questions free will and God’s existence, all in three minutes. On the synth-prayer “Sway,” she wonders if she has the strength to surrender to the direction the wind is blowing her.

Musgraves is surely the only artist, country or otherwise, who is making records eclectic enough to crib ancient Scottish folk melodies on one song and interpolate a hook from rapper JID on the next. Deeper Well is Musgraves’ third effort with Ian Fitchuk and Daniel Tashian, and the hallmarks of their collaboration — processed banjo, vocoder flourishes — can be heard throughout. By and large, the production touches, which risk being a crutch, are much lighter on a record where the songs speak for themselves.

But the second half of Deeper Well struggles to maintain momentum with a lack of dynamics and a string of tunes (“Heart of the Woods,” “Dinner With Friends,” “Anime Eyes”) that don’t quite hold their own. The sparse vulnerability of the production quickly exposes any imperfections, and some of the material feels more detached than determined.

Contrast that with a highlight like “Giver/Taker,” an understated reflection on how much relationships can ask of two people, and a song that bears the fruit of all the digging Musgraves has done. It’s not a big-swing statement, just a reminder that sometimes revelations — and career resets — are OK as long as the songs carry their weight.