Appearing a mere five months after {|Folklore|}, {|Evermore|} is a direct sequel to its predecessor, recorded in a similar fashion during the 2020 quarantine, containing a similar supporting cast and exploring a familiar set of emotions. {|Evermore|}... Read more

Appearing a mere five months after {|Folklore|}, {|Evermore|} is a direct sequel to its predecessor, recorded in a similar fashion during the 2020 quarantine, containing a similar supporting cast and exploring a familiar set of emotions. {|Evermore|} isn't quite a {|Folklore|}, Vol. 2, though. Where {|Folklore|} was a controlled departure, an album where every element fell into exact place, {|Taylor Swift|} is quite a bit looser on {|Evermore|}, playing with narratives and texture, feeling so comfortable in her moody surroundings that she throws around profanities without hesitation. The explicit language serves as a signal to {|Swift|}'s ongoing maturation as a songwriter -- more than ever, it's clear that she spins stories in a third character -- but {|Evermore|} benefits from a slight playfulness, a quality she deliberately suppressed on {|Folklore|}. It surfaces strongly on No Body, No Crime, a murder revenge tale told with the assistance of {|HAIM|}, and flows through the insistent pulse of Long Story Short and the sweet sway of Dorothea. {|Swift|} still leans into bittersweet settings, finding a sympathetic collaborator in {|Aaron Dessner|}, the co-leader of {|the National|} who produced and co-wrote the great majority of the record. {|The National|} themselves are featured on Coney Island -- {|Bryce Dessner|}'s grave intonations provide a strikingly effective contrast to {|Swift|}'s gentle phrasing -- but they, like {|Dessner|} on the rest of the album, work as expert support to {|Taylor|}, coaxing out the bittersweet complexities of her compositions. {|Evermore|} reaches something of a crescendo on Marjorie, an ode to her late grandmother where the delicately shifting arrangement -- more electronic than acoustic, despite the album's rural imagery -- underscores instead of heightens {|Swift|}'s open grieving. While Marjorie might veer toward the melancholy, {|Evermore|} as a whole doesn't play as a sad album. {|Swift|} enjoys playing with the new musical and emotional colors on her palette for {|Evermore|} to anything but a warm balm, a record suited for contemplation, not loneliness. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine Less