Palomino / Miranda Lambert.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Miranda Lambert sings that she wants to see the desert from a painted palomino on "Actin' Up," the opening cut on her ninth album, fittingly titled Palomino. That sense of wanderlust permeates the record, driving its stories of misfits, tourists, and wandering spirits, the kinds of souls who just can't stay at home due to heartbreak, discontent, or simple restlessness. Lambert lingers over the details in her stories and sketches, characters, and scenarios she accumulates as she roams the country as a tourist who harbors dreams of being a cowboy. This sense of forward motion is emphasized by how Lambert expands her musical palette on Palomino. Working with Jon Randall and Luke Dick as co-producers, she discovers a fertile middle ground between earthy country and playful pop, peppering the album with picturesque production flair while maintaining a sleek, cinematic vibe. Palomino is a far cry from the dusty The Marfa Tapes, the 2021 album Lambert released with Randall and Jack Ingram, a distance that's put into sharp relief by the polished revisions of three of that record's songs. The thing is, Lambert is the rare artist who benefits from a full-blooded, expansive production, as the different shades and textures highlight the empathy and wit in her work. Here, "In His Arms" reveals its tender heart, "Waxahachie" has a quietly urgent momentum, and the put-downs in "Geraldine" are delivered with a sneer. Lambert surrounds these three songs with 11 dynamite originals, plus a breakneck cover of Mick Jagger's "Wandering Spirit" that lends the album its spirit if not sound. Most of Palomino proceeds at a gentler pace than this unexpected Jagger cover, but it hardly sounds monotonous. Lambert sounds sultry and dangerous on "Actin' Up," sneers through "Country Money," and tears it up with the B-52's on "Music City Queen," an ode to the denizens of a tacky riverboat. The different sounds and scenes add up to a rich, complex album, one where Lambert finds the perfect blend of the writerly The Weight of These Wings and the breeziness of Wildcard. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine