Kevin Morby takes a slower, warmer wander through the Midwest on Little Wide Open

Stick to more of the same, and risk diminishing returns and flagging of interest. Head in a dramatically different direction, and the special ingredient that led to the earlier triumph could well fade away amidst the artistic rerouting.

2022’s This Is A Photograph transitioned Kevin Morby from a reliably solid interpreter of the classic North American songwriting idiom ala Dylan, Cohen and Reed, beloved by record shop staff and others who listen to music compulsively but doggedly resistant to mainstream success, to a genuinely distinctive voice capable of holding rapt audiences on the palm of his hand with his bittersweet and deceptively simple recitals. Rooted in folky strumming that flows easy like cool water from a stream, Little Wide Open sands away some of the rough edges and eccentric mood swings of its justifiably lauded, soul-hued predecessor to land in a thoughtfully unhurried groove, with a handful of tunes stretching as far and wide as the Midwestern plains of Morby’s younger days (he was born in Lubbock, Texas and grew up in Kansas City), memories and impressions of which give the album – also infused with flashes of mortality and the doubts of gradually creeping midlife - a sort of a loose theme.

Whereas This Is A Photograph was palpably rooted in the rawness of loss and the ravages of passing time, Little Wide Open doesn’t seem overly concerned with reaching for similarly heavy profundity, opting instead for pleasantly warm open-endedness, wary of major declarations, clearly spelled-out meanings or excessive noise. Whereas its predecessor alternated wounded introspection with off-the-leash old school rock & roll rave-ups, Little Wide Open doesn’t venture far from the tastefully sparkling midtempo Americana that has become the hallmark of producer Aaron Dessner’s work outside his day job in The National.

Allow it time to bloom at its own urgency-averse pace, however, and Little Wide Open may just offer the musical equivalent of a warm hug with its disarmingly plainspoken and unrushed contemplation. Pitched in stark contrast to the white-knuckled 1978 Bruce Springsteen classic and Terence Mallick’s pitilessly brutal 1973 depiction of a futile Midwestern murder spree it shares its title with, the easy-rolling Tom Petty-isms of “Badlands” – riding a naggingly catchy guitar riff – find Morby’s conversational tones contemplating a place ‘’where the sky expands and you and I expire’’, whilst the wryly melancholy “Die Young” looks back more of less fondly to bad habits associated with the life of a touring musician left behind, and the beautifully glowing slow-motion closer “Field Guide for the Butterflies” finds Morby wondering ‘’is it suicide if I die out chasing thrills/just me trying to grow wings’’.

The expansive barn dance sway of the eight-minute title track breaks the album’s overarching mood of mellow introspection to (possibly) lift the veil on what it’s like as one half of a couple (Morby is married to Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield) who both draw from real life in their songwriting, with lines like ‘’drag all our secrets like cats from a bag/use all our insights to decorate the parade/turn me inside out, baby, hang me on display’’ hitting with a directness and raw feeling that wouldn’t have gone amiss amidst the less charged sections of Little Wide Open.