Miranda Lambert returns with her 10th studio album today (Friday, Sept. 13), and in the process, she’s revisiting and celebrating her Lone Star State roots even as her career propels forward, as her new album is her first since signing with Republic Records, in conjunction with Big Loud, earlier this year.
For more than two decades, Lambert has been defiantly and triumphantly carving her own sonic territory, setting herself apart by skillfully writing and recording songs that detail life’s idyllic and messy moments, capturing both blazing zeniths of confidence and hazy shadows of doubt — always with a tumbleweed spirit. The result has been seven Billboard Country Airplay No. 1s, and and seven albums that have reached the pinnacle of the Top Country Albums chart.
On previous albums, this three-time Grammy winner has veered from country’s glam-rock edges to its moody, soulful precipices. But on her latest, she’s in classic Lambert form — though the spunky, something-to-prove edge of her early albums has cemented into a surefooted, calm-yet-keen creative spark, as she bends every note and lyric in her distinct Texas twang.
The sounds emanating from this project’s 14 songs are entrenched with stinging wit and shot through with unadulterated frankness, as Lambert worked at Arlyn Studios in Austin, co-producing the album with longtime collaborator Jon Randall. On her latest, Lambert and her collaborators etch detailed imagery of the neon-lit honky-tonks, homey back porches, pastures and stretches of open spaces that embody where the album was created.
Many of the songs here center on loving and leaving, acknowledging free-spirit ways, while it’s understood that allegiances to country music and the Lone Star State are likely to outlast just about everything else.
“I have not made a record in Texas since I was 18, my little independent album, so this is full circle – coming back home to the root, to kind of start fresh with a new label and sound and some new band members I haven’t played with,” Lambert said via a release before the album’s drop. “Being back home and really remembering why I love country music, it’s already leaning way more country which I love.”
Billboard ran through Postcards From Texas upon its arrival on streaming services, ranking all 14 tracks from the project below.
Written by Lambert, Randall and Jack Ingram, Lambert sings of finding her spirit again under open desert skies as she follows her heart toward myriad risks and uncertainties, “knowing that you’ll burn me every time.” Lush background harmonies, steel guitars and understated percussion offer an ethereal tilt to this song.
Sinewy guitars ripple as Lambert reminisces about a love, one she sings that “puts my heart in another state of mind.” Gentle rhythm and wafts of ’70s country steel guitar further elevate this track, which Lambert wrote with Shane McAnally and Natalie Hemby.
She’s been through enough heartbreak to know when a relationship is already showing the red flags of a likely painful breakup in the future, but she also knows when being captivated just might be worth going against her better judgement. “Girl, I tell myself, ‘You oughta know better/ But whatever’” she sings. This mid-tempo, moody and haunting track is a top-tier vehicle for Lambert’s knowing, wisened vocal.
Lambert concludes the album with a cover of this 1976 David Allan Coe classic, a take on an outlaw doing everything possible to evade an ex-lover who just broke out of jail in Tennessee. Her smooth, conversational vocal delivery drives home this song’s modern-yet-timeless vibe.
Lambert returns to the kind of burn-it-all-down revenge stories that first served as her musical introduction. Written by Audra Mae, Evan McKeever and Ryan Carpenter, this song etches the tale of a woman dead-set on independence from a dead-end ex-lover, and she’s undeterred by the fiery bout of jeans-burning revenge required to set those plans off the ground.
Lambert’s fellow Texan Parker McCollum joins her on this languid song, as they offer up the tale of a short-lived meeting between two strangers in the titular town, and after one has left, the memories still hold fast. Meanwhile, he spends his time “just wanderin’ ’round this empty turquoise town/ Spanish guitar playin’.” Their voices make for a silk-and-sandpaper combination, offering the right amount of the spirit of dusty roads and soothing sunsets.
A rock-tinged solo write from Lambert, this is the singer-songwriter at her best, with one of her most vulnerable musical moments. Heartfelt and heart-wrenching, she sings of regret while accepting wildflower ways, on lines such as “I owe you a lifetime of apologies/ I’m tellin’ the truth now, I love you so much/ I’m sorry for lyin’ about who I was/ I was gonna run.”
“A heart is a b–ch on the sauce, gon’ do what it do,” Lambert sings here. Written by Lambert with Jaren Johnston, the song ponders if repeated nights of alcohol-fueled meetups are a result of deep-seated love — or is it just the liquor talking? Either way, this jangly track that builds from barroom-ready groove to a full-throttle, rock-fueled jam guaranteed to give audiences a good time.
Written by Randall, Lambert and Lambert’s husband Brendan McLoughlin, this tender ballad evinces Lambert’s eternal willingness to run full-force toward keen-eyed truth-telling. In this case, she’s pitying an ex-lover who didn’t realize the gem he had until it was too late. “You were standin’ bone dry in the middle of a waterfall,” she sings, her lilting voice laced with both acceptance and flashes of triumphant anger, making it clear that she’s moved on.
Written by Lambert, Randall and Ingram, this steel-threaded, acoustic-driven number delves into the lingering effects of a bad breakup, as she looks insightfully at a relationship gone wrong, and wonders why she got into the relational mess in the first place. As always, her lyrics are incisive and illuminating, as she first asks listeners if they’ve ever felt an all-consuming love for someone, before leveling with them in the deadpan lyric, “I did one time/ And it ruined my life/ Everything went wrong.” Now, though she’s put that love behind her, she finds herself still eschewing flowery love songs. This song’s direct and unfiltered message is effective.
Another outside cut on the project, this Neil Medley- and Brent Cobb-written song centers on the blooming effects of an “opposites attract” kind of relationship. “You’re like a warm glass of summer with lemon poured over ice/ I got a January heart, don’t we go together nice?” she sings, acknowledging the shining, heart-melting effects of an uplifting lover.
One of the most wildly humorous songs on the album, “Alimony” doesn’t hold back, layering ample amounts of sarcasm and lyrical zingers as she sings of daring a wayward lover to go right ahead and play his games, since she knows a high-powered lawyer whose legal successes have given him a mansion. “‘ll be countin’ the dollars, you’ll be rollin’ the dimes/ Freedom don’t come free,” she sneers. On the chorus’s hook, she sings, “If you’re gonna leave me in San Antone/ Remember the alimony” — employing some clever country songcraft, as she stretches out the final word, shaping “Alamo” into “alimony.”
Written by Lambert and Luke Dick, “No Man’s Land” was an early release to preview the album. This lush song is both filled with sage advice and loving tribute, as she advises how a man how to love a wildflower of a woman — who wants to give all the love she has, but still remains true to her free-hearted self. “Love her like a mustang/ like a wild thing/ Better let her run free,” Lambert sings on this track, marking one of the most stellar near-love songs on the album.
Postcards From Texas launches with this quirky, freewheeling tale of a chance meeting with a hitchhiking armadillo that leads to a doobie, a koozie and two strangers running from the law. Written by Jon Decious, Parker Twomey and Aaron Raitiere, the song’s toggling pace and unabashedly country storyarc make it a prime option to open the album.