Since her first album, 2016’s
Midwest Farmer’s Daughter, Margo Price has often been positioned in outlaw country, flanked by comparisons to Bobbie Gentry and Loretta Lynn. But on her third LP,
That’s How Rumors Get Started, Price veers closer to classic rock and away from the honky-tonk that once echoed through the Nashville songwriter’s music. While her debut was charged with drinking tropes and her sophomore effort (2017’s
All American Made)
steeped in political consciousness,
Rumors focuses on the more vulnerable stories of touring life: being away from home, surviving relationships and the anxiety of stillness. Price is at her most stunning on the gospel-tinged confessional “Prisoner of the Highway,” in which she reflects on the cost of being an artist on the road while in love and starting a family. The same goes for power ballad “I’d Die For You,” where she parallels a soaring Stevie Nicks. A little bit of Nashville and Southern rock seems to ha