Maren Morris
embraces her inner pop diva on her fourth album, 2025's sweetly flavored and chockablock with hooks
Dreamsicle
. While she made her name in Nashville, scoring big country-soul hits like "My Church,"
Morris
has never been just a country singer. It's a feeling she underscored with her 2018 hit with
Zedd
"The Middle" and her effusive 2019 duet with
Hozier
"The Bones." Yet it's that earthy country soulfulness that is her hallmark, especially when working through life's struggles as she did on 2022's
Humble Quest
, an album that found her celebrating the birth of her first child and working through her feelings over the end of her marriage. While there's nothing as life-changing at the core of
,
nonetheless conjures big emotions that feel as grounded and real as anything she's done. Working with a close group of production collaborators, including
Greg Kurstin
Jack Antonoff
Joel Little
Evan Blair
, and others,
leans into a sonically varied vibe, moving between big melodic pop songs full of glassy '80s-inspired synths and buzzy, dayglow guitars and more intimately rendered numbers, many of which are imbued with a righteous, female-empowered energy. Part of the joy in
is hearing how good
' throaty, powerful vocal coo sounds when matched with a clubby groove, as on the sparkling
1975
-esque "Cry in the Car." There's a sense that she's breaking away from both musical genre constraints and more personal emotional ones. It's a feeling she underscores on "Cut!," her ebullient duet with singer
Julia Michaels
that turns the daily life of a working actress into a feminist battle cry. They sing, "I'm screaming, 'Cut!'/I need a moment to just let my tears fall where they want." Tearful emotions do fall, even as
contrasts her heartbreak with infectious choruses, as she does on "Bed, No Breakfast" and "Push Me Over." There are also some interesting moments of musical experimentation, as in "People Still Show Up" with its jazzy,
Steely Dan
-esque bass line. Smartly,
also doesn't completely let go of her country roots, and tracks like "Too Good," with its multi-tracked,
Dolly Parton
harmonies and the delicately sparkling acoustic title-track, have a genuine Nashville singer/songwriter quality. She also balances the album's sugary highs with songs that dig deep into heartbreak, as on "This is How a Woman Leaves," her voice trembling with raw pathos. With
has made an album that's less of a statement about walking away from Nashville and country music and more about the transcendent creative freedom that comes with knowing who you are. ~ Matt Collar