Even on her major-label debut, 2016’s Hero, Maren Morris bent the rules of traditional country radio: She cursed, read men for filth and, on breakthrough single “My Church”, bucked the title’s pious implication by declaring the radio, not the church, as her salvation. Since then, the Texas-born singer-songwriter (who moved to Nashville in her twenties at the behest of her pal Kacey Musgraves) has purposefully distanced herself from the Music City machine, mocking the industry’s conservatism on 2023’s “The Tree” and promoting 2024’s Intermission EP explicitly as pop. The five tracks from that EP appear alongside nine new ones on Morris’ fourth album, D R E A M S I C L E—an even bolder departure from her country roots. For both Intermission and D R E A M S I C L E, Morris veered away from Music Row and towards a crack team of pop songwriters (among them Julia Michaels, Tobias Jesso Jr. and MUNA). There’s no mistaking lead single “people still show up” for anything like country; instead, Morris sounds funkier than ever over a slow-simmering Jack Antonoff groove in celebration of the safety net friends provide after a breakup. “I wrote it back in early 2023, before a lot of my personal life stuff was imploding,” Morris tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, referring in part to her 2024 divorce. “So it was almost like this premonition of a song.” Catharsis comes up often: On the ’80s R&B throwback “cry in the car”, Morris extols the virtues of weeping at the wheel, and on the Julia Michaels duet “cut!” all the therapy and yoga in the world can’t match the release of a good scream session. And though “too good” might be the record’s twangiest moment, it’s also the pettiest: “Bitch, you still owe me rent!” Morris yowls to an ex, hoping that the couch they’re crashing on these days is comfy. “I don’t want perfection from my idols,” she tells Lowe. “I want them to be honest, as much as they’re willing to be. I want it to be a little bit human and messy.”