Miranda Lambert - "Postcards From Texas"
Miranda Lambert is one of those few Country artists who never strayed. She didn’t get her start until after the genre started slipping off of the rails post-9/11, but there has always been a clear line back to the Rock-infused Country and Western of the 90s. Unlike other artists in the genre’s mainstream, she’s never caved to any of the trends — no Bro Country, no pandering or posturing, no Country Rap appropriation.
Her ninth studio album, Postcards From Texas, is really just more of Miranda Lambert doing what she does best — making solid Country music with interesting stories and concepts. Now at age 40, she is noticeably less fiery than she was in her twenties.
With that said, nobody should ever call Lambert tame — the album’s lead single, “Wranglers”, brings out the fiery attitude that she built her brand on. The next closest song to that tone is “Alimony”, which is honestly incredible. It’s a snarky Texas divorce song with a clever titular line in the chorus of “Remember the alimony”.
The strange thing, though, is that Lambert didn’t write “Wranglers”. It’s one of only four songs on the album that she didn’t write, including opener “Armadillo” and the gorgeous “January Heart”. The album’s closer is a cover of David Allan Coe’s “Living On The Run”. Maybe that’s why, despite that I expect attitude from Lambert, “Wranglers” doesn’t really click the way I expect a full-chested Lambert song to — like her classics, “Kerosene” and “Gunpowder and Lead”.
What the album does well, though, are the slower love and breakup tracks. While she’s known for being a fireball, Lambert has also always been very good at emotive storytelling — look no further than her iconic “The House That Built Me”. On Postcards From Texas, the best exemplars of this that you’ll find are “Dammit Randy”, the image-heavy “No Man’s Land”, and “Way Too Good At Breaking My Heart”. The last of these utilizes a descending scale for its central hook, both in the vocals and guitar, and it drops roughly a full octave in a 5-3-4-2-3-1 pattern.1
The last song I need to mention is “Bitch On The Sauce (Just Drunk)”, which is an anthem for anybody who has ever drunk-dialed an ex for a booty call. It’s less emotive, but the lyricism is still very solid.
Postcards From Texas ultimately feels like a small step down from Lambert’s last outing, 2022’s Palomino, which rated a Blue and ranked 24th in my year-end countdown. There’s still a lot to enjoy here, though, especially if you like your Country with a lot of steel guitar and subtle rock vibes.
Rating: Green
If anybody with a bit more technical music theory training wants to listen and either confirm or correct this, please let me know!