Deeper Well [Translucent Cream]

Kacey Musgraves' 2024 album Deeper Well pressed on 180-gram transparent cream vinyl.

...the understated music on Deeper Well fits its theme: Comfort and care are life’s biggest prizes and the fear of upending that careful balance is what keeps you up at night. (“I think about you often/Worrying that I might drive/The nail into the coffin,” from “Nothing to Be Scared Of,” might be the album’s best lyric.) When there are details, they are delicate: “Giver/Taker,” one of several songs about how all one really needs is love, is sparsely wreathed with banjo and cello and has an intricate beauty. “The Architect,” the lone song with Musgraves’ old core co-writer, Shane McAnally, sticks out for its nesting Russian doll structure, mirroring Musgraves’ worried spiral about whether there’s logic to the universe.

—Pitchfork