Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
The trailer may still be in the same spot where she parked up for her previous album in 2013 but the sense of maturity as a musician even in those couple of years and the light years since she first played around with her own independent recordings is something that comes across with much depth in Kacey Musgraves latest release, Pageant Material and which has seen the trailer become an impregnable fortress.
The procession of songs that make up the album sparkle, not with the plastic smile and fake sincerity, the orange suntanned glow of make believe and the falsehoods of social pleasing platitudes but with sheer belief and obvious hard work that such reflections on life demand. The spectacle that they sit in is one that plays once more with the thought of beautiful observance and melancholic ceremony whilst all the time taping into the thoughts of millions of young girls who don’t want to play the same game to get noticed, not for them the often discrediting ploy of being seen as a beauty at skin deep level, for them it is more to be seen as able to be themselves and live their own life rather than in the shadow of the spotlight glare and false adornments.
There is a certain beguilement that comes with such works, such simplicity of spirit and introspection that it’s impossible to ignore what the artist is saying and for them the absolute need to just deliver a song that doesn’t need a degree to work out what is being suggested but just requires empathy and love to carry the musician and the listener off to the same space is gratifying and wonderfully full of spiritual minimalism.
With songs such as Late To The Party, the beautiful and deeply honest appraisal of Biscuits, the pain of looking at the jealous and insecure in Miserable, the mixture of tenderness and exasperation in Family is Family and the sensational self-denial in Good Ol’ Boys Club all providing the feeling of wholesome individuality, of playing for the satisfaction of keeping the soul intact and the faint whisper of a future country legend at ease with herself and living life to her own high standards.
Pageant Material is an album of substance and overwhelming faith in Humanity at its core, superb!
Ian D. Hall