Last year, the great country star Miranda Lambert took a couple of left turns. First, she released The Marfa Tapes, a strange and lo-fi album that she recorded with songwriting collaborators Jack Ingram and Jon Randall. On that LP, Lambert intentionally kept everything ramshackle, recording outdoors with acoustic guitars, all first takes and no overdubs, wind and background noise intruding on everything. For someone who makes sharp, clean mass-consumption music, this was a big departure. Lambert also got together with her side-project supergroup Pistol Annies to release the Christmas album Hell Of A Holiday, and she came out with a few assorted tracks here and there. Today, Lambert announces that she’s coming back this spring with Palomino, her first proper studio album since the 2019 banger Wildcard.