Kevin Morby – ‘Little Wide Open’ album review: A road too well-travelled
The vastness of America has been a constant source of inspiration for many songwriters over the years, and has produced many of the nation’s most impactful songwriting from the likes of storytellers such as Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. Kevin Morby‘s attempt to do the same on his eighth studio album, Little Wide Open, doesn’t quite manage to capture the same sense of majesty as his predecessors, or indeed some of his previous work.
The Skinny: Musically, Morby is still found in fine form, still plaintive and introspective in his ability to craft songs from the ground up, and with a handful of flourishes that feel inspired. There are absolutely melodies that will stick with you, even if they appear to be simple on first listen, and the manner in which he evokes the vastness of the routes he travels down is the mark of a songwriter who is able to use his wealth of experience to create a vivid scene through the music alone.
As he takes the well-trodden paths of many other folk singers, travelling from place to place as though rumbling along an open road, it’s the moments when you get to the next town, and you’re thinking about everything you left behind, that highlight how poignant this tribute to his native Midwest can be at times. The guests who join him on this journey, from Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon to MUNA’s Katie Gavin, all feel as though they’re people he’s met on stops along the route, all of whom are there to help him reach his next destination.
However, while it’s all well and good having this overarching theme and concept, when it’s delivered by way of lyrical cliches that are easy to predict on every turn, the desire to explore those feelings and emotions with Morby is sapped from the listener, making the journey exhausting at moments.
It’s the rhyming couplets that you can see coming over the horizon from a mile off, shoehorned references to the different states he’s passed through on his route from A to B, and lines that you feel have been dredged from the beginner’s handbook that all unfortunately drag the record down from its highs. The concept of the road trip album is as tried and tested as any, and while it should be tricky to get wrong, if you’re seeing the same landmarks again and again, the thrill dissipates after a while.
Producer Aaron Dessner and Morby wanted to go for a stripped-back to-basics approach on the record, which is a perfectly understandable move given the themes of the record, but sometimes in the pursuit of simplicity, the crux of what makes an intimate record like this emotive and easy to connect to gets lost on the highway. Much like all long journeys, the hour-long runtime of the album is going to be equally filled with moments of reflective joy and an itch to have it over and done.
Standout Track: ‘Javelin’
The Verdict: While travelling across the great American landscape and soaking up the curiosities that it has to offer along the way may have been what drove Morby to assemble Little Wide Open, it would appear that his accounts of it have ended up just as confused and lacking in identity as the country itself in its current state.
Release Date: May 15th, 2026 | Producer: Aaron Dessner | Label: Dead Oceans
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