Kelsea Ballerini announces new album, ‘Patterns’. Not what you’d expect: ‘I’m a team without rules’

NEW YORK — Kelsea Ballerini is radiant. It’s not a nervous smile, although she admits to feeling scared. She’s been hard at work on her fifth full-length album, “Patterns,” and on October 25th the world will finally hear it – listen to her, in a collection of songs she describes as an “accurate snapshot” of her life. And lately, people have been curious. The story they will hear, she assures them, is not what they expected.

“I think people probably expect this really carefree, loving, mushy, sentimental album from me. That is not the case,” she told the Associated Press. “And I’m very proud of that. It would have been easy, I think, to just collect the really beautiful parts of my life that I dusted off and found over the last few years. But that is not the fullness of my experience.”

She is referring, in a way, to the super hit of 2023 “Rolling out the welcome mat,” an EP and short film that told the story of the dissolution of a marriage, a not-so-veiled reference to her own life, where, in 2022, Ballerini divorced Australian country singer Morgan Evans. Nowadays, she has partnered with “Exterior Landmarks” star Chase Stokes, a relationship that audiences fell in love with. But his love life isn’t the only crux of “Standards.”

“There’s a lot of narrative about learning how to move from fighting with something or someone to fighting for something or someone. And there’s a lot of that journey throughout the album,” she says.

Unlike “Rolling Up the Welcome Mat,” which she describes as a reflective release, “Patterns” is active and present. The album’s “Heartbeat” is about “examining yourself and the people you love most in order to grow.”

This appears on the previously released track “Cowboys Cry Too”, featuring Noah Kahan — the only collaboration on the album and an empathetic look at toxic masculinity from a female perspective – and new single “Sorry Mom,” released Friday. It’s a swinging guitar pop confessional with cross-generational appeal, and it will undoubtedly strike a chord.

“It’s an intimate song,” she says. “The first sentence is: ‘Sorry, Mom, I smelled like cigarettes.’ You know, it’s the things your mom doesn’t really want to hear. But then you get to the chorus, the essence and the core, and it’s a thank you letter to my mother for raising me the way she did.

“Sorry Mom” is one of many love songs on the album: like “Cowboys,” which was written for the men in her life, or a lush song of self-preservation and celebration called “First Rodeo,” which has a romantic theme. This is the kind of music that can be performed in a safe writing and recording environment.

To make “Patterns”, Ballerini called on an all-female team. She co-produced and co-wrote the album with Alysa Vanderheym, and also worked with songwriters Jessie Jo Dillon, Little big city Karen Fairchild It is Hillary Lindsey. “I’ve never felt so confident making an album before, from top to bottom. There was more pressure on this album just because of all the ears and eyes that ‘Welcome Mat’ got,” says Ballerini. “And so, I wanted to do this one safely, where I didn’t feel the pressure from within.”

They continued writing retreats together, and the process “produced something that felt streamlined, without feeling too monotonous, and something that naturally has a lot of warmth and empathy and heart,” she says. “Because that’s what we do as women.”

This level of comfort also allowed for exciting experiences. Ballerini is a country musician through and through, but she’s not afraid to take genre-bending risks, especially on this album. “For me, what undoubtedly makes me country is my storytelling and my songwriting. And it will never waver or change. But as always, I didn’t think much about whether there was a banjo or a drop in the beat. And there are both on this album, as well as on my others,” she says. “I think in terms of lyrics and content, I really was a team without rules. Nothing is off limits.”

There are lighter songs here, and darker ones, self-discovery and insecurity, as well as different geographies. New York and South Carolina are characters, Ballerini exploring her “loose hair, human self and the most tidy, nervous, focused on me”, she says.

“It’s my job to make a record that has something for everyone. But that comes from making a record that’s true to me, and that’s what I did”, he concludes. “And so, I just hope that people feel something,” as they listen. “Whatever.”