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Review: Kelsea Ballerini - PATTERNS
November 1st 2024
My only experience of country music was being a passive listener in my dad’s car on those terminal weekend journeys children are subjected to when parents split. An endless stream of tape cassette driven: John Denver, Glen Campbell, Crystal Gayle et al. Just the opening couple of bars or the first verse of a song, and the draining silence of a father and son sat with nothing to say comes flooding back. On reflection, a part of my early to mid-80s childhood was in essence, the very nuance of what I thought country music was.
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In the almost decade since Kelsea Ballerini first found success at country radio, she’s firmly established herself as a leading figure in the genre and is now widely recognised as an authentic singer / songwriter with an affinity for blending country and pop. It’s no small feat to sustain that level of success, particularly given the stratospheric heights her debut single, ‘Love Me Like You Mean It’ catapulted her to almost immediately in 2015, making her the first female solo artist to score a Number One for her debut single since Carrie Underwood, which was in 2006. That nine-year gap demonstrates just how difficult it has been for solo female artists to break through at country radio.
But not only did Ballerini break through in a massive way, she has sustained, endured and evolved her sound to solidify her standing as a leading figure in the genre, and she’s now back with her fifth album, ‘PATTERNS.’ (Some may possibly argue it’s her sixth album given that she released Kelsea in 2020, but then also released companion album, Ballerini, which was a reimagining of those same songs later that year, but I’m still running with fifth here).
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‘PATTERNS’ follows on from last year’s ‘Rolling Up the Welcome Mat (For Good)’. While that EP really delved deep into the emotional fallout Ballerini experienced as she navigated her very public divorce; most notably the live version of ‘Penthouse’ dubbed the ‘Healed Version’ that signified Ballerini was moving on from the heartbreak: “I kissed someone new last night, and now I don’t care where you’re sleeping baby.” The addition of the excellent ‘How Do I do This’ that highlights the universal fear of jumping back into the dating scene after a break-up: “I'm scared of looking stupid / Said I'm ready, now I gotta prove it / Got a little black dress, I wanna use it / And maybe lose it, on a floor that ain't mine / I think it's probably time to keep it movin' / I talk a big game, that I'm scared of losin' / Everything I knew about love is ruined, it's so confusin' / So, how do, how do I do this?”
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What’s immediately noticeable about ‘PATTERNS’ is how light and buoyant the vibe of this record is compared to its predecessor. While she does still touch on those heartbreak themes (heartbreak is a country artist’s bread and butter, after all) this feels like the playfulness of some of her earlier hits coupled with the confidence of an artist and woman who’s very much moved on and found her joy again. It’s an infectious throughline that runs through the record, which I would say is Ballerini’s best yet.
‘PATTERNS’ was written over a number of writing camps with the same four collaborators, and what collaborators they are: Nashville songwriting royalty, Hillary Lindsey (one third of The Love Junkies writing trio), Little Big Town frontwoman, Karen Fairchild, GRAMMY nominated Songwriter of the Year, Jessie Jo Dillon and Ballerini’s longtime co-producer, Alysa Vanderheym. Half of the songs on PATTERNS are written by all five women together, with Fairchild and Lindsey dropping out for some and Indie Singer / Songwriter Noah Kahan having a writing credit on the album’s only duet, ‘Cowboys Cry Too’ alongside Ballerini and Vanderheym.
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‘PATTERNS’ is the title track and opens the record, which Ballerini has said “thematically it’s like a self-assessment where, as you grow up, and especially as you get into your thirties you look at yourself differently, you assess your life differently and you find out what’s important to you, what you want to move forward into the next chapter of your life with.”
‘Sorry Mom,’ which Ballerini describes as one of her favourite songs on the record, feeds into the theme of growing in self-confidence and acceptance of your own patterns, both good and bad and reflecting on that acknowledgement in order to move forward. “I turned out alright, so you can sleep good at night / Maybe I ran all the red lights / Maybe we got into a few fights / It's a different cloth we cut /But underneath wе're the same blood. So I know it took a littlе tough love / To become the woman that you're proud of.”
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On ‘Two Things’ Ballerini navigates the complexities of a relationship that triggers that fight or flight response, which she describes as “an intense crossroads moment” of a relationship where “all your old patterns are showing up and you have to make that decision to learn to go from fighting with to fighting for …or not.” The ‘two things can be true’ concept, she explains, is the space for more than one truth to hold equal value: “Two things can be true, I'll love and hate you / I'll be your best and your worst day, I'll be your blessin' and curse, babe, yeah / Sometimes I'll cut and ghost, Sometimes I'll get too close.”
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For me, the album’s highlight - on a tracklist full of them - is ‘We Broke Up’ which I imagine will become a show-stopping moment on her upcoming arena tour the same way ‘Penthouse’ has. This is THE anthem for all the overthinkers out there to fight their natural impulses to “deep dive in the details” and instead, just accept that it’s a “tale as old as time, I don't gotta wrap my head around it. It's as simple as, "We broke up" Ballerini doubles down on this in the catchy post-chorus: “It is what it is, okay? When it's over, it's over, it's over / We broke up / No use in digging up bones from the grave / When it's over, it's over, it's over.” It’s the kind of song that it feels like she has big plans for in her live shows.
Overall, Ballerini’s taken some big swings with this record, from everything down to the writing camps, the way she wanted it to sound as it was recorded and most importantly, the autobiographical lyrics, and the melodies that run throughout, but she’s hit a clear home run because PATTERNS is both a lyrically intelligent album and an incredibly fun forty-five minutes of music.
PATTERNS by Kelsea Ballerini is out everywhere now via Black River Entertainment.
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Hit the buttons below to link to Kelsea's socials.
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