But Lambert mutters the phrase introspectively, resignedly, over a rumbling bassline and an almost drone-like bed of electric guitars.
"There's trouble where I'm going but I'm gonna go there anyway," Lambert sings in the moody "Runnin' Just in Case," which begins the album and sets its unfolding agenda. The eclecticism of this album serves Lambert's desire to address a serious subject: what a woman who forges her own path must sacrifice, and has to gain. Novelty romps like the sure-to-be-a-single "Pink Sunglasses" and the breezy "For the Birds" leaven the project's tone but mostly, the eclecticism of this album serves Lambert's desire to address a serious subject: what a woman who forges her own path must sacrifice, and has to gain. Working with East Nashville favorite Eric Masse as well as her longtime producers Glenn Worf and Frank Lidell, Lambert establishes a baseline of atmospheric, cleanly contemporary country rock, but also experiments with Patsy Cline-style torch singing ("To Learn Her," co-written by her Pistol Annies pal Ashley Monroe), big-shouldered power balladry ("Keeper of the Flame") and a take on Southern gospel that's deeply indebted to Lucinda Williams ("Dear Old Sun"). Handpicked, top-tier writers and co-writers, ranging from royals like Natalie Hemby and Liz Rose to hot new talents like Aaron Raitiere and Lambert's protégé Gwen Sebastian, help her adhere to a consistent tone and thematic focus throughout these 24 tracks, but range is the point, and she relishes it. She's pure country, but only if that designation allows her to be a singer-songwriter, a bluegrass enthusiast and a digger in the crates of Southern rock, pop and soul. Lambert is the kind of mainstream pop heroine who's worked to earn the right to think like an artist, and this release, on her own Sony Records imprint Vanner, reasserts her singular status within country as a favored child who refuses to conform. The Record Country Music's Year Of The Woman It's a star move only in the way it's an insistently personal and empathetic one. Musically and in the lyrics she co-wrote throughout, Lambert is exploring the subtleties of the process of composing her own life. Everything on TWOTW is about gradations: the ways a mid-tempo ballad can slide toward rock uplift or stay in a blue zone the way a line that sounds like it shuts a door (say, "The thought of loving you just makes me sick"), delivered with tenderness, actually signals a new kind of opening. She's not turning away from the crowd that already loves her she's giving them the credit to see the darkness in her jokes and the hope that lightens the tone of her tearjerkers. Working in equal measure with the most pop-savvy East Nashville-associated "cool kids" and the cream of Music Row sophisticates, Lambert crafts a sound that is deeply adaptable: catchy and introspective, tradition-bound and cleanly contemporary. Many are viewing this expansive collection of songs as a career-defining effort by Lambert, and it is - a mapping out of a third way between commercial country and more high-minded Americana music that is, in fact, already being taken by new dominant forces like Chris Stapleton and Kacey Musgraves and popular "outsiders" like Jason Isbell and Margo Price. Lambert is exploring the subtleties of the process of composing her own life. But as much as this is a woman's album, deeply informed by Lambert's awareness of the limits and demands placed upon women who stray from easy ways, it's also her answer to the classic work of the Texas songwriters who formed her, especially Willie Nelson, whose Red Headed Stranger informs TWOTW's sound and scope. It bears a strong connection to other works by contemporary country women demanding equal time and space with men, like Rosanne Cash, the Dixie Chicks and the Joni Mitchell of Hejira. 18) is the most musically and conceptually cohesive release yet from country music's most respected younger female star. Divided into two segments that trace a woman's steps away from the security of a coupled, anchored life and eventual return to both herself and the risk of intimacy, TWOTW (out Nov. "I don't have the nerve to use my heart," Miranda Lambert sings exactly halfway through The Weight of These Wings this double album, a set of songs perfectly pitched for uncertain times, is her way of embracing the long answer as an artistic strategy and a personal mission. It takes steel to accept uncertainty, even though it's all we really have. Adults harbor similar tenacious expectations for themselves.