Kelsea Ballerini- Patterns
Label: Black River
Producers: Kelsea Ballerini and Alysa Vanderheym
As 2022 slowly turned the page to 2023, country starlet Kelsea Ballerini slowly but surely leaned into the first bona-fide moment of her career, thanks to the glorious overlap of her vibrantly plucky fourth studio set (Subject to Change) and a bold, critical darling of an EP (Rolling Up the Welcome Mat). Those projects documented Ballerini’s emergence from a publicly toxic divorce, with the former bursting with colorfully pointed spunk and reflection, while the latter leaned hard into the moodiest and bitterly honest emotions of a relationship’s disintegration. She had finally delivered the fully-bloomed artistic identity that she had been progressively building towards over the course of her first three albums, leaving a new career benchmark for this, its inevitable follow-up, to aim for. In totality, Patterns leans far closer to the alluring introspection of Mat, showcasing a large helping of brooding and dreamy ballads. These moments continue to explore the various relationships and figures that comprise Kelsea’s personal life, from past break-ups and newfound love to a complicated relationship with her mother, which gets explored to tremendous effect on the new career highlight, “Sorry Mom”. Elsewhere in this realm, folk-rock superstar Noah Kahan drops by to help her battle the more widespread social issues of toxic misogyny and the sexism of gender roles on the superb “Cowboys Cry Too”. The floating pop-folk soundscapes of these moments call to mind latter day efforts from obvious influences like Taylor Swift and Kacey Musgraves. Ballerini’s mastery of hooky moments or spacey poetry have not yet reached the respective heights of those two peers, but she’s certainly inching closer, and if anyone has followed the model of maturation from teen-country pop-tart to serious singer-songwriter that Swift established, it’s Ballerini. What’s really missing most from Patterns however is the sparkling, splashy color that gave Subject to Change such a delicious balance. Tracks like “Baggage” and “I Would, Would You” tease us with some of that fetching contagion, but the record never really builds upon those moments. Part of the reason that Rolling Up the Welcome Mat and its rainy-day reflections worked so well was due to the brevity it offered as a true-blue EP. The longer length and lack of tempo of Patterns makes it a bit uneven; it’s slow-burn album that grows with repeat listens, but always feels just a tad short of taking full flight like its predecessors. Consequently, its a holding-pattern album for the singer, granted one that’s keeping her firmly planted in an impressive era of growth that few would have foreseen upon her arrival a decade ago. The fact remains when she strikes that sweet spot highlighting her potent blend of pop flare, core country foundations, and confessional coffeehouse inclinations, she’s one of the most promising artistic forces that mainstream country has to offer.
Track Listing:
- “Patterns” (Kelsea Ballerini, Karen Fairchild, Jessi Jo Dillon, Hillary Lindsey, Alysa Vanderheym)
- “Sorry Mom” (Ballerini, Fairchild, Dillon, Lindsey, Vanderheym)
- “Baggage (Ballerini, Fairchild, Dillon, Lindsey, Vanderheym)
- “First Rodeo” (Ballerini, Fairchild, Dillon, Lindsey, Vanderheym)
- “Nothing Really Matters” (Ballerini, Dillon, Vanderheym)
- “How Much Do You Love Me” (Ballerini, Dillon, Vanderheym)
- “Two Things, “(Ballerini, Fairchild, Dillon, Lindsey, Vanderheym)
- “We Broke Up” (Ballerini, Fairchild, Dillon, Lindsey, Vanderheym)
- “Wait!” (Ballerini, Vanderheym)
- “Beg For Your Love” (Ballerini, Dillon, Fairchild, Lindsey, Vanderheym)
- “Deep” (Ballerini, Dillon, Vanderheym)
- “Cowboys Cry Too” featuring Noah Kahan (Ballerini, Noah Kahan, Vanderheym)
- “I Would, Would You” (Ballerini, Dillon, Vanderheym)
- “This Time Last Year” (Ballerini, Vanderheym)
- “Did You Make It Home? (Outro)” (Ballerini, Vanderheym)
The 706 
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