Miranda Lambert – ‘Postcards from Texas’ evaluation: feisty, humorous and free

A few years in the past, a younger, up-and-coming nation singer crooned about how “they are saying you may’t go dwelling once more”, of leaving dwelling, shifting on and doing the perfect you may. ‘The Home That Constructed Me’ went on to change into Miranda Lambert’s greatest hit on the time – and nonetheless stays certainly one of her most iconic. However now, 20 years into her profession and a bonafide celebrity, Lambert has left Nashville to return dwelling, to her native Texas, rediscovering herself within the course of.

Consider Lambert’s aptly titled tenth album, ‘Postcards from Texas’, as life classes informed by way of vignettes of a roadtrip throughout the Lone Star state. (It’s additionally the place she recorded the album, her first time doing so since her independently launched self-titled 2001 document.) In some moments, she’s pleased simply sitting with the nostalgia of a reminiscence (the geography-driven ‘Wanting Again on Luckenbach’ and ‘Santa Fe’). Throughout others, she’s susceptible and regretful of the chaos wrecked by her free-spirited methods (the beautiful solo-written ‘Run’ and self-aware ‘Manner Too Good At Breaking My Coronary heart’).

On the coronary heart of this homecoming of the prodigal daughter is the plush ‘No Man’s Land’. Right here, she warns a person about how she is free, they usually can love her if they have to, however belief her to stay true to herself: “So love her like a Mustang / Like a wild factor / Higher let her run free.” That may be very a lot the essence of the document, of somebody who’s comfy in her pores and skin as a wildflower, acknowledging all the bags that comes with it, but additionally discovering a second wind with companions (be it co-producer Jon Randall or husband Brendan McLoughlin) who embrace the mess together with her.

By no means one to drown out her music with an excessive amount of earnestness, although, ‘Postcards from Texas’ will be as cheeky as it’s honest. Whether or not it’s Lambert gleefully daring a dishonest lover to proceed stepping out (“What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine / So go on, child, have an actual good time,” she sings on ‘Alimony’, with a superb play on the phrase “Alamo”) or a far-flung story of an opportunity assembly with a pot-smoking, gun-toting stranger on the run from the “coppers” (‘Armadillo’), they’re proper at dwelling with the sassiest of her hits.

Lambert is feisty, humorous and free on ‘Postcards from Texas’, which feels just like the singer not has something to show to anybody. It would fall again on style tropes from time to time – in fact, there’s at all times that one track about setting shit on hearth (‘Wranglers’) or ingesting a bit an excessive amount of (‘Bitch On The Sauce’) – and generally is a little too ballad-heavy, however the nation celebrity’s tenth album is as charming as it’s witty and stirring. After a very long time away, Lambert’s lastly again dwelling, wholeheartedly herself and basking in that self-assuredness.

Particulars 

• File label: Vanner Information/Republic Information
• Launch date: September 13, 2024