‘Looks like you came to party!” teases Kacey Musgraves, radiant in a white dress and matching cowboy boots. With a gentle wave, the Texan country star tells us to take it easy. Tonight’s showcase for her introspective sixth album Deeper Well is all mellow magic – but for every airy verse about the healing beauty of nature, there’s a shadowy kicker.
Cardinal, the album’s lead single, is dedicated to the late John Prine. Over an eerily transcendent, 70s-infused guitar melody, she wonders if he’s sending her signs “from the other side”. For a split second, the lights cut out. The gorgeous Heaven Is, inspired by Scottish folk song Ca’ the Yowes, veers from earthly pleasures to mysteries beyond the veil, while The Architect, with its humble strumming and deceptively simple refrain, is split between fate and fatalism: “Could I pray it away, am I shapeable clay? Or is this as good as it gets?”
