Halloween-loving singer-songwriter Kacey Musgraves stepped onto the stage of her Climate Pledge Arena show last night in an amiably casual costume of her own. Her brown cow getup was made up of fake ears, horns, a bullish septum piercing, a Hershey-colored tank-top, and booty shorts supplemented  by appropriately patterned chaps. A little ways into the concert, she took a moment to appreciate some of the costumes she spotted in the crowd, reserving the most relish for a couple folks on the floor dressed up as armadillos — an ensemble she’s seen more than once over her last few stops. “Y’all better work!” she told them with a grin.

That playful tone was a constant during the performance, which was not merely the last of a two-night residency at the Seattle arena but the finale of Musgraves’ entire tour. (Concluding after 37 shows, it will be followed up by some festival dates starting on Jan. 22.) The run is named after Musgraves’ seventh LP, Middle of Nowhere, which, for many longtime fans, was a sigh of relief after her last couple albums sanded down both her country bona fides and the wit that made her famous. It’s closer in spirit to her debut, 2013’s Same Trailer, Different Park, and 2015’s Pageant Material, the dyad of career-starting projects that, with its sharp-tongued critiques of old-school Southern customs and all-in-good-fun self-ridicule, made her an exciting young talent in the often stuffily traditionalist country milieu. Made amid an extended period of point-of-view-clarifying self-isolation, Middle of Nowhere marked a return to form without feeling like it was cynically servicing fans who longed for the tuneful cleverness of old.

Read the full review at 425.