Same Trailer Different Park (Mercury, 2013)

Kacey Musgraves sounds so much like Miranda Lambert on her single, Merry Go 'Round, you'd almost assume they were sisters. With the album "Same Trailer Different Park," we learn Musgraves, who helped write Lambert's current hit Mama's Broken Heart, also shares lyrical spunk with Lambert, as songs are packed with plenty of humor and down home wisdom.

Coincidently, cigarettes also show up a lot as they do on some of Lambert's recordings. Blowin' Smoke, for instance, looks in on a group of girls chatting while taking a smoke break. It's a sign of the times that Musgraves phrases it, "We're out here blowin' smoke," because nobody's allowed to smoke indoors anymore. On a deeper level, though, this song's words speak to the practice of talking the talk, without walking the walk. One of these gals claims she's too good to be a waitress, while all the while still working as - you guessed it - a waitress.

The Texan and former Nashville Star contestant is nothing if not a straight talker. When she sings, "He don't know your heart from a hole in the ground," over a stomping acoustic guitar groove during the appropriately titled Stupid, Musgraves bluntly summarizes how many of us make really bad decisions when it comes to choosing romantic partners. "I don't know why we always do it," she wonders at one point. Amen!

In the pantheon of female country singers, Kacey Musgraves is a true keeper. We don't want more divas; we need women to tell it like it is. Enter Musgraves' pull-no-punches world, and you won't be disappointed - guaranteed.