When Kelsea Ballerini first emerged a decade ago, she was compared to Taylor Swift, but her pop-tinged country was defined less by major artistic swings than by understated recognizability. On career highlights such as 2016’s infantile bad-boy takedown, ‘Peter Pan’, 2022’s playful Thelma and Louise/’Goodbye Earl’ riff, ‘If You Go Down (I’m Going Down Too’) , or the Kenny Chesney-helmed study in ambivalent small-town loyalty, “Half of My Hometown,” she has always been able to maintain a poised, optimistic presence even as she crafted songs from the less-than-joyful moments of life.

Her latest, Patterns, is no different, a characteristically varied collection in which she looks inward with honesty and determination, staying strong without sounding too heavy about it. “Is this a battle I will ever win?” she asks. The somber “Sorry Mom” and the spicy highlight “Baggage” look at the turmoil of life with good-natured resignation. On the former, she movingly thanks her mother for sticking by her through some less-than-ideal youthful interludes, now that they both know everything worked out. The upbeat “Nothing Real Matters” advises listeners to “give your demons some grace” and suggests demonic activity like eating cake and hanging out naked around the house.

The album shifts the sonic lens in a way that feels natural and welcome. Folk pop superstar Noah Kahan overcomes the great male vulnerability in the duet ‘Cowboys Cry Too’. The light-hearted ‘Wait’, the ballad ‘Deep’ and ‘We Broke Up’, in which the recently divorced woman takes an attitude towards relationship problems, fades country pop with R&B-leaning influences. On the upbeat highlight “I Would, Would You,” a team of backup singers throw a party while singing about the lifelong power of ride-or-die friendship. What emerges is an album about turning life lessons into bops and today’s hardships into tonight’s drink orders.