(EBM) Miranda Lambert joined "TODAY with Hoda & Jenna" to celebrate the release of her new album "Postcards from Texas". Watch it Watch it here With NPR's "All Songs Considered" lauding Miranda Lambert as "the most accomplished and consistently great artist in contemporary country music" as Postcards from Texas leads today's discussion of the most impactful new releases, the show also declares, "This is an album that proves that she's a backbone of country; she can make these really beautiful, minimalist country songs that get to the heart of very clear, concise ideas about love and homeland."
"Usually when you make a record, it's a snapshot of the past two or three years and where you are in that moment," reflects Lambert. "Postcards from Texas instead draws on all the different stages of my life and my career, all the influences that have ever inspired me, and gives you a really full picture of who I am."
With a perky backbeat and a come-hither tone, Lambert kicks off Postcards from Texas with "Armadillo," the plucky, magical-thinking road adventure that sets the tone for the 14-song romp across her home state that is both nostalgic and forward-facing. With an emphasis on the wide-ranging musical palette of Texas itself, Lambert and co-producer Jon Randall created a mélange of sleek '70s country ("Looking Back On Luckenbach," "Wildfire"), slow-burning Neil Young swagger ("Wranglers"), grassy pluck ("Bitch On The Sauce (Just Drunk)"), a hilarious shuffle ("Alimony," celebrated by the Associated Press as "such a rewarding lyric reversal, it feels almost prototypical - as if plucked from some great country music songbook instead of written into it") and classic songwriter fare ("No Man's Land," "I Hate Love Songs"), plus an unrepentant take on David Allen Coe's "Living On The Run."
"You'd have to look pretty far and wide to find anyone in music who has been as consistently good or eternally enjoyable as Miranda Lambert," declares Rolling Stone's review. With her ninth solo studio project adding to that celebrated discography, the accomplished writer and vocalist of many colors and emotions delivers an album that is in turns sleek, ragged, rocking and honky tonk ready. Think of it as Lambert's love letter to her home state. Recorded at Austin's legendary Arlyn Studios, the pair of GRAMMY-winning creative forces drew on some of Texas's best-known musicians to further root this song cycle in the textures that have defined her storied career. If you like freewheeling, high-flying, seat of your pants ecstasy and slightly salty "here's how it is," Lambert's first album for Republic Records pushes all those buttons, and more.
"There's the line 'livin' on a Lone Star love' in 'Looking Back on Luckenbach,' and that could be the thesis statement for this record," Lambert reflects. "It really sums up the entire journey that I've taken with this new path... Going back to the root and putting a lot of steel guitar on it, a lot of country - a lot of kinds of country - it's just kind of finding my place again artistically."
"At this stage in her career, Lambert doesn't have anything to prove - and that's one of many reasons why Postcards from Texas is a ride that works," applauds the Associated Press, with local cultural authority Texas Monthly adding, "On paper, Lambert seems to have all she ever wanted and more... Rather than taking a victory lap, though, Lambert is pushing into territory that's as risky as it is familiar."
A masterclass in the phases and stages of a songwriter raised on the potent forces of Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, George Strait, Steve Earle and Guy Clark, this is Lambert at her truest and most real. "There are tearful, pedal-steel ballads that could have been written at any point in the past 50 years, but also songs with a more contemporary, arena-ready rock sheen," notes the Daily Mail, yet as Rolling Stone raves, "the album never feels like a tribute to anything other than her own independent muse."
From start to finish on Postcards from Texas, the woman known for her staunch individualism, no-mess attitude and unwavering truth-telling moves through the expansive freedoms and musical gears that makes Texas such a mythic, magical place - looking back on the journey thus far while also keeping an eye down the road to where all of it might take her.
"The beginning and ending were on purpose," she admits. "We're gonna start out and end in the same level of brokenness. 'Living on the Run,' because of what it says, makes you feel like you're about to get in the car with that armadillo again, and start it all over. I feel like it's the signal to start the journey all over again, because that's what life is."
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