Pointedly released on Valentine's Day 2023,
Rolling Up the Welcome Mat
is a brisk EP that finds
Kelsea Ballerini
coming to terms with her recent divorce from
Morgan Evans
. The six songs here don't trace the arc of her brief marriage so much as her acceptance of its dissolution, concluding with the hopeful note that she will never leave herself behind again when she enters a romance. A close reading of the lyrics to
reveals a number of intimate details of their union, along with a rolling series of self-insights. None of the music on
conveys such a sense of intense reflection. With its easy tempos and smooth surfaces,
offers clean, uncluttered comfort. Listening to it without paying a whit of attention to the words
Ballerini
is singing, it'd be difficult to imagine that it was born from a place of pain, not pleasure. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine