Kacey Musgraves — Golden Hour (March 30, 2018)

         ^{Kacey Musgraves — Golden Hour (March 30, 2018)}  Ω••Ω       Little surprise, then, that Golden Hour falters where it’s closest to mainstream country. “Space Cowboy” is the sort of track where you suspect the writers came up with the titular concept first (“you can have your space, cowboy”) then paired it with a stock arrangement. But then there’s something like “Velvet Elvis,” co~written with Nashville longtimer Natalie Hemby. It’s a chameleon of a song, and it’s easy to imagine it sung brash, by a Miranda Lambert or Kellie Pickler type. Musgraves’s version is more understated, from its floaty “Every Breath You Take” riff to her near~deadpan vocal. “All I ever wanted was something classic,” she sings, echoing a diss in “High Horse,” whose subject is “classic in the wrong way.” If the right way’s a hunk of velvet kitsch, Musgraves sings, what’s the problem? And if the right way for Musgraves’s music is low~key folk, what’s the problem? It’s not classicist, but perhaps it might be classic. (
Katherine St. Asaph)
Born: Kacey Lee Musgraves, August 21, 1988, Golden, Texas, United States
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Genre: Alternative country Psychedelic folk Country pop    
Album release: March 30, 2018
Recording Location: Big Green Barn (2017)
Record Label: MCA Nashville
Duration:     45:44
Tracks:
01 Slow Burn     4:06 
02 Lonely Weekend     3:46 
03 Butterflies     3:39 
04 Oh, What a World     4:01 
05 Mother     1:18 
06 Love Is a Wild Thing     4:16 
07 Space Cowboy     3:36 
08 Happy & Sad     4:03 
09 Velvet Elvis     2:34 
10 Wonder Woman     4:00 
11 High Horse     3:33 
12 Golden Hour     3:18 
13 Rainbow     3:34
Written by:
Θ¬≥        Ian Fitchuk / Kacey Musgraves / Daniel Tashian     1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 12 
Θ¬≥        Natalie Hemby / Luke Laird / Kacey Musgraves     3,
Θ¬≥        Luke Laird / Shane McAnally / Kacey Musgraves     7
Θ¬≥        Luke Dick / Natalie Hemby / Kacey Musgraves     9
Θ¬≥        Jesse Frasure / Hillary Lindsey / Kacey Musgraves / Amy Wadge     10
Θ¬≥        Trent Dabbs / Kacey Musgraves / Tom Schleiter     11
Θ¬≥        Natalie Hemby / Shane McAnally / Kacey Musgraves     12
Credits:
Θ→     Craig Alvin Engineer, Mixing
Θ→     Greg Calbi Mastering
Θ→     Trent Dabbs Composer
Θ→     David Davidson Viola, Violin
Θ→     Luke Dick Composer
Θ→     Dan Dugmore Pedal Steel
Θ→     Shawn Everett Mixing
Θ→     Steve Fallone Mastering
Θ→     Ian Fitchuk Banjo, Bass, Composer, Drums, Guitar (Electric), Juno, Keyboards, Percussion, Piano, Producer, Programming, Synthesizer Bass, Vocoder, Wurlitzer
Θ→     Jesse Frasure Composer
Θ→     Serban Ghenea Mixing
Θ→     John Hanes Mixing Engineer
Θ→     Natalie Hemby Composer
Θ→     Gena Johnson Production Coordination
Θ→     Luke Laird Composer
Θ→     Jordan Lehning Editing
Θ→     Hillary Lindsey Composer
Θ→     Todd Lombardo Banjo, Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar (Baritone), Guitar (Classical), Guitar (Electric), Guitar (Nylon String), Slide Guitar
Θ→     Shane McAnally Composer
Θ→     Kacey Musgraves Art Direction, Composer, Guitar (Acoustic), Producer
Θ→     Karen Naff Design Coordinator
Θ→     Russ Pahl Pedal Steel
Θ→     Zack Pancost Assistant
Θ→     Carole Rabinowitz Cello
Θ→     Justin Schipper Pedal Steel
Θ→     Tom Schleiter Composer
Θ→     Bobby Shin String Engineer
Θ→     Kelly Christine Sutton Art Direction, Design, Photography
Θ→     Daniel Tashian Banjo, Bass, Celeste, Composer, Digital Sampling, Fender Rhodes, Fender Stratocaster, Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar (Baritone), Guitar (Classical), Guitar (Electric), Keyboards, Mandolin, Producer, Programming, Soloist, Synthesizer Strings, Vibraphone, Vocals (Background)
Θ→     Alberto Vaz Assistant
Θ→     Amy Wadge Composer
Θ→     Ivan Wayman Assistant
Review
by Sam Sodomsky, April 2, 2018; Score: 8.7
Ω••Ω       The mystical grandeur of Golden Hour creates a magnetic effect as Kacey Musgraves sings simply about the world as if she’s the first person to notice, and you’re the first one she’s telling.
Ω••Ω       Kacey Musgraves’ third album goes down so smoothly that it might not even scan as a total reinvention. Throughout the songs on Golden Hour, the East Texas singer~songwriter is radiant, awestruck, taking the scenic route to the bar just for the hell of it. After Musgraves’ previous two albums, which felt like they were cut from the same home~sewn flannel cloth, she now ventures beyond the front~porch hum of country music. The new Kacey Musgraves needs strings, vocoders, disco beats. And if this sounds like a left turn for the lovable cynic who once characterized the world as an absurd beauty contest, a vicious cycle, a bad party, and a toxic boys’ club, well, that’s kinda the point.
Ω••Ω       Since her last proper album, 2015’s Pageant Material, the now 29~year~old singer~songwriter has changed her perspective. There was a spirited Christmas record, a creatively charged acid trip, and a rustic country wedding. It’s like Musgraves’ life was given the season~finale treatment: a series of climactic turns that left her standing misty~eyed on a cliffside, bellowing “I get it!” at the sunrise. She’s updated her music accordingly. On Golden Hour, everything sprawls and swells and gushes, a gaping sky that makes the sonic landscapes of her previous albums feel like mere set dressing. For these songs of hope and wonder, she nods to meticulous folk epics like Beck’s Sea Change, or Sufjan Stevens’ Seven Swans if it was re~cut for an IMAX screen. She’s settled on enlightenment as a new resting state.
Ω••Ω       The result is Musgraves’ most accessible record and her most ambitious, a magnetic, comfortable culmination of her pop and country instincts. While dynamic enough to house both the stirring, alone~at~the~piano fragment “Mother” and a full~on country~disco kiss~off in “High Horse,” Golden Hour is alluringly cohesive, both lyrically and musically. In “Wonder Woman,” she confronts a partner’s unrealistic expectations and gives a simple counter: “All I need’s a place to land.” Throughout these songs, she finds one.
Ω••Ω       Despite the grandeur of its music, Golden Hour offers Musgraves’ most understated songwriting, a refreshing evolution as stars like Justin Timberlake and Lady Gaga accidentally turn Americana~pop into grim satire. In the stunning single “Space Cowboy,” she weaves in at least a dozen genre tropes without drawing any attention to them. Instead, you’re left dazzled by the way her bold, drawling voice can cut through simple ideas — “Sunsets fade/And love does too” — like she’s the first person to notice, and you’re the first one she’s telling.
Ω••Ω       Sometimes, that familiarity belies the complexity of these songs. Tracks like “Love Is a Wild Thing” and “Oh, What a World” swirl around the positive messages in their titles in a state of euphoria. Musgraves includes precious few of the subtle details that made her 2013 breakthrough, Same Trailer Different Park, feel so instantly familiar. On a previous record, she might have provided a tour of the neighborhood that landlocks the star~crossed home~bodies in “Lonely Weekend,” or cracked a stoner joke about the “plants that grow and open your mind” in “Oh, What a World.” In the places where you’d expect Musgraves to land her punches, she sometimes offers just a wistful sigh.
Ω••Ω       But if the tension in her earlier work came from her sharp observations and underdog spirit, there’s something more complicated at play here. “Is there a word for the way that I’m feeling tonight,” she asks in “Happy & Sad,” attempting to pinpoint the creeping melancholy undercutting an otherwise blissful evening. Golden Hour is an album~length ode to not having the right words, to being overcome by the moment and surrendering to it.
Ω••Ω       Musgraves’ songwriting melts seamlessly between celebration — in heart~eyed~emoji anthems like “Butterflies” and “Velvet Elvis” — and elegies for when those feelings start to dim. The cinematic arrangements rarely distinguish between those two modes, coating the album in a pristine, sepia glow that makes tales of solitude like “Lonely Weekend” seem downright inviting. There’s a subtle awareness throughout these songs of what happens as soon as the golden hour ends, how quickly that burst of light can fade without a trace. In the title track, Musgraves compares her contentment to a temporary trick of the light: “All that I know,” she admits, “Is you caught me at the right time.”
Ω••Ω       Less concerned with outside forces than internal balance, Golden Hour stands as an assured, artful snapshot of a particular rush of feelings, but its wisdom speaks volumes to Musgraves’ ongoing evolution. “If you’re ever gonna find a silver lining,” she sang in the first track on her major label debut, “It’s gotta be a cloudy day.” Even then, she suspected that ecstasy is most rewarding when it’s hard~won. On Golden Hour, she wears the sunlight well.     Ω••Ω       https://pitchfork.com/
AllMusic Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine; Score: ****½
Ω••Ω       Golden Hour shimmers with the vivid colors that arrive when the sun starts to set, when familiar scenes achieve a sense of hyperreality. Such heightened emotions are a new aesthetic for Kacey Musgraves, who previously enlivened traditional country with her sly synthesis of old sounds and witty progressive lyrics. Musgraves barely winks on Golden Hour, disguising her newfound emotional candidness behind a gorgeous veneer of harmonies and synthesizers. Sonically, the album doesn’t scan country. Whenever Musgraves makes an explicit nod to the past, she acknowledges the smooth grooves of yacht rock and the glitterball pulse of disco, styles that only have a tangential relationship with country but feel more welcome in a landscape where R&B and hip~hop are embraced by some of the biggest stars in country. Musgraves doesn’t mine this vein, preferring a soft, blissed~out vibe to skittering rhythms and fleet rhymes. At their core, the songs on Golden Hour — largely co~written with Musgraves by her co~producers Ian Fitchuk and Daniel Tashian, but also featuring Natalie Hemby, Luke Laird, and Shane McAnally, among other collaborators — don’t play with form: they are classic country constructions, simply given productions that ignore country conventions from either the present or the past. This is a fearless move, but Golden Hour is hardly confrontational. It’s quietly confident, unfurling at its own leisurely gait, swaying between casual confessions and songs about faded love. The very sound of Golden Hour is seductive — it’s warm and enveloping, pitched halfway between heartbreak and healing — but the album lingers in the mind because the songs are so sharp, buttressed by long, loping melodies and Musgraves’ affectless soul~baring. Previously, her cleverness was her strong suit, but on Golden Hour she benefits from being direct, especially since this frankness anchors an album that sounds sweetly blissful, turning this record into the best kind of comfort: it soothes but is also a source of sustenance. Ω••Ω     https://www.allmusic.com/
Discography:
••     Same Trailer Different Park (2013)
••     Pageant Material (2015)
••     A Very Kacey Christmas (2016)
••     Golden Hour (2018)  
Website: http://www.kaceymusgraves.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KaceyMusgraves
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KaceyMusgravesOfficial   
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Kacey Musgraves — Golden Hour (March 30, 2018)

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