In 2022, Megan Moroney introduced herself to the world with “Tennessee Orange,” a tender love song that detailed her romance with a blue-eyed Knoxville boy while nodding to her Georgia upbringing. Her three albums alternate between those picture-perfect romances and the relationships that are anything but. Moroney’s emo cowgirl persona—paired with her charred, charming voice—has always scanned as candid and sincere. But while she’s solidified herself as one of the leading women in country music, her songwriting has grown less specific. “I tell the stories,” she once told NME, “but then people make them their own.”
Cloud 9, her latest, comes a little under two years after Am I Okay?, but it seems little has changed in Moroney’s world in the interim. The assorted losers and nameless heartbreakers she writes about here rarely have defining characteristics, while the sound is steadfast country pop basics. With the assistance of her regular producer, Kristian Bush of Sugarland, Moroney provides a tasteful blend of swaying acoustic guitars, sanded-down pedal steel, and the occasional electric melody. This isn’t crossover country with glossy stadium ambitions or the recent spate of neo-traditionalists. Instead, the subtle melodies and stately tempos are designed to redirect you back to considering Moroney’s whirlwind feelings.
The steady, lawnmower buzz that Cloud 9 hums along at is a shame, particularly because Moroney has a knack for barnburning, funny kiss-offs. She jumps into Sabrina Carpenter territory with the Amy Allen co-write “Stupid,” which contrasts a man “who probably couldn’t spell valedictorian” with Moroney’s confidence that she’s the whole package. It stands out, in part, because of Moroney’s hopping vocal melody, which rests atop a mid-tempo groove sturdy enough to have come from Eric Church’s prime. “Stone cold killers have guns / But I’ve got songs,” she threatens a particularly unsavory potential lover on “Wish I Didn’t” over disco synth stabs and anchoring harmonies that suggest Taylor Swift’s most playfully dismissive hooks. It’s hard not to grin when Moroney snarks “Zero out of ten / Would never date again” after the full power pop hook of “Change of Heart” comes crashing in.
When given the opportunity, though, Moroney shirks her potential as a country rock badass and retreats to pleasant, convincingly competent ballads. Shuffled snare drums and light touches of a reverb-dosed electric suggest a 3 a.m. morning barroom on “I Only Miss You,” a simple duet with Ed Sheeran. Their voices blend handsomely but even the song’s somewhat clever wordplay (“I only miss you when I’ve been drinking / And baby, I’ve been drinking cause I miss you all the time”) leans towards the bland. “Beautiful Things,” a letter of encouragement to Moroney’s niece, has the hallmarks of a Lori McKenna production without any of the “Humble and Kind” songwriter’s knack for melody.
Moroney is a confident chronicler of relationships in a world where dating culture has been chewed and spit up by the hyper-online. She’s the rare vocalist that doesn’t sound ridiculous singing about Instagram. But at 15 songs, the mid-tempo churn threatens to overwhelm Cloud 9 all together. Moments of relief come when she connects her aching honesty with an unexpected subject: on “Liars, Tigers and Bears,” for instance, she articulates the professional and social turbulence that comes with being a successful musician and achieves lift-off with that falsetto-based chorus.
All those dating tales of Prince Charming and dipshits come to the fore on “Waiting on the Rain,” a profoundly pessimistic State of the Union for Moroney’s love life. She closes Cloud 9 wondering what she’s supposed to do when she knows her relationships—even the good ones—will fall apart. It’s a stark place for Moroney to end up, one that almost imbues all the other songs with some retroactive pathos. Almost. [Sony/Columbia]
Ethan Beck is a Pittsburgh-born, Brooklyn-based journalist and critic who has written for The Washington Post, Public Source, Los Angeles Times, and other publications.
