Miranda Lambert – Palomino 2LP Vanner Records / Sony Music

Hot on the heels of her recent 2022 Academy of Country Music Awards win for Entertainer of the Year, Miranda Lambert is set to release “Palomino,” her ninth solo album, on April 29, 2022.

A line from the first song written for the album perhaps sums up the project as a whole best: “there’s always been a stranger in my soul / who loves a good goodbye and a good hello,” she sings in “Tourist.” On Palomino, her inner stranger travels lyrically from Fort Worth to the Mojave Desert; Battambang, Cambodia to Maine; the Crystal Palace in Bakersfield to the Rocky Mountains and beyond. In each destination and with every character met along the way, Lambert’s freewheeling trek is a work of unbridled freedom and self-discovery without painful introspection.

“The making of this record has been one of the most fun and creative experiences of my career,” reflects the woman who holds the title of most-awarded artist in ACM history. “Luke Dick, Natalie Hemby, and I went out to my farm in Tennessee in 2020 and started writing songs. We figured while we have time let’s get out to the country and see what happens. The first one we wrote was ‘Tourist’ and that set us on a path to create something with a bit of a theme. Since we couldn’t travel at the time, we decided to go on a journey through songs. I hope y’all are ready to travel with us wandering spirits and meet some cool characters with great stories.”

Lambert — who is now the most-awarded artist in ACM history — has already released the Jesse Frasure co-written single “If I Was A Cowboy” and the just-premiered, low-key, 70s rock-tinged “Strange” (featuring Dick and Hemby as writers) from the new project. “Palomino”‘s other reported influences include acts like Little Feat, Bruce Hornsby, the Range and Emmylou Harris.

The album includes a cover of Mick Jagger’s 1993 solo album title single “Wandering Spirit,” plus an album track entitled “Music City Queen,” which features backing vocals from pop icons the B-52s.