Against a backdrop of the Qing era, due to his father Sung On (Cheung Tat Ming) working as a prison guard, smart and clever Sung Sai-kit (Vincent Wong) has witnessed all kinds of unjust things as he has been wandering around within the prison walls since his childhood, causing hi… Read all
“My Saturn has returned,” the cosmic country singer-songwriter proclaimed to announce her fifth album (apologies to A Very Kacey Christmas), Deeper Well. If you’re reading this, odds are you know what that means: About every 30 years, the sixth planet from the sun comes back to the place in the sky where it was when you were born, and with it, ostensibly, comes growth. At 35, the chill princess of rule-breaking country/pop/what-have-you has caught up with Saturn and taken its lessons to heart. OUT: energy vampires, self-sabotaging habits, surface-level conversations. IN: jade stones, moon baths, long dinners with friends, listening closely to the whispered messages of the cosmos. (As for the wake-and-bake sessions she mentions on the title track—out, but wistfully so.) Musgraves followed her 2018 breakthrough album, the gently trippy Golden Hour, with 2021’s star-crossed, a divorce album billed as a “tragedy in three parts,” where electronic flourishes added to the drama. On Deeper Well, the songwriter’s feet are firmly planted on the ground, reflected in its warm, wooden, organic instrumentation—fingerpicked acoustic guitar, banjo, pedal steel. Here, Musgraves turns to nature for the answers to her ever-probing questions. “Heart of the Woods,” a campfire sing-along inspired by mycologist Paul Stamets and his Fantastic Fungi documentary, looks to mushroom networks beneath the forest floor for lessons on connectivity. And on “Cardinal,” a gorgeous ode to her late friend and mentor John Prine in the paisley mode of The Mamas & The Papas, potential dispatches from the beyond arrive as a bird outside her window in the morning. As Musgraves’ trust in herself and the universe deepens, so do her songwriting chops. On “Dinner With Friends,” a gratitude journal entry given the cosmic country treatment, she honors her roots in perfectly sly Musgravian fashion: “My home state of Texas, the sky there, the horses and dogs, but none of their laws.” And on the simple, searching “The Architect,” she condenses the big mysteries of human nature into one elegant, good-natured question: “Can I pray it away, am I shapeable clay/Or is this as good as it gets?”
Kaylee Bell has always had the sort of vocal swagger that could truly fill up a room. Her third album backs up that natural confidence with her sharpest songwriting and most wide-ranging sound to date. Decamped to Nashville with some of the city’s in-demand players, the Aotearoa New Zealand artist crafts modern country with universal appeal on the heartland rocker “Small Town Friday Nights” and the pop-driven power ballad “When Summer Rolls Around.” “Boots ’N All” is about knowing when to seize the moment, and Bell’s powerful voice fittingly rises to that occasion. Driven by a firm electronic pulse, “Life Is Tough (But So Am I)” is a club-friendly duet with young pop singer Navvy. Bell also looks back to the soundtrack of her 1990s childhood, channeling Faith Hill on “Where Were You” and earnestly reworking Alanis Morissette’s empowering 1995 hit “You Learn.” She also returns to her own songbook, ending the album with a stripped-back and emotional version of her definitive track, “Keith.”
A lot happened in the six years between Justin Timberlake’s last studio album, 2018’s Man of the Woods, and Everything I Thought It Was. After a world-changing pandemic, the pop star appeared in films, hopped on numerous collaborations (Jung Kook, Coco Jones, and Jack Harlow among them), and reunited at long last with his fellow *NSYNC members for the Trolls Band Together soundtrack. With Everything I Thought It Was, Timberlake is back to creating for himself. “I think there are moments that are incredibly honest,” he tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “But also, there’s a lot of fucking fun on this album.” As Man of the Woods was a tribute to Timberlake’s family and Tennessee roots, Everything I Thought It Was is a homecoming in its own way. Opening track “Memphis” is a pensive reflection on his hometown and the pressures of doing it proud: “You’re the one that’s chosen to make it out/Gotta seize the moment, don’t let us down.” He revisits his boy-band days with yet another new *NSYNC team-up, “Paradise,” whose simple guitar melodies highlight the quintet’s harmonies in all their timeless splendor. With help from producers including Calvin Harris and longtime collaborators Timbaland and Danja, Everything I Thought It Was is Timberlake’s return to peak pop-R&B form and a credible sequel to his club-influenced 2006 LP FutureSex/LoveSounds. Beyond the breakup ballads (“Drown”) and syrupy seductions (“Play”), the album glides across the dance floor with hip-grinding electro-R&B (“What Lovers Do”), Afrobeats (“Liar” featuring Fireboy DML), and sweat-slicked disco grooves, occasionally throwing curveballs with beat switches (“My Favorite Drug”) and delivering a modern-day “Rock Your Body” in “F****n’ Up the Disco.” “I think that’s where I came up with the album title,” Timberlake says. “I was playing it for people around me. They’re like, ‘Oh, this sounds like everything we know you for.’ And then another friend of mine was like, ‘Oh, this sounds like everything I thought I wanted from you.’ It was like that sort of phrase, in one way or another, was in the air.”
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