Well, for one thing, Maura Weaver’s new album has a little bit of honky tonk sprinkled throughout. “Museum Glass” has a slide guitar that sounds like it was jacked from Grahm Parsons. “Cool Imagination” sounds like one of the Rolling Stones tracks where they pretend they are cowboys. In the vein of June Carter and Dolly and Hank Williams, Weaver is able to pull true soul and weepiness from the instrument and melody and achieves that sort of wistful transcendence which is what makes country so great, when it is great. But, there’s the trick. Strange Devotion ISN’T a country album. It’s a Maura album wherein she welds a number of styles- Elliot smith indie rock, post-punk, balladry, country- into an ethereal mist.

Throughout the record, Weaver rises and vanishes into the rich mix here. And this is Weaver’s richest sounding album to date. There are soaring guitars, crashing drums, robo-synths, and everything in between so the record sounds huge, but also intimate, No doubt that’s due to Weaver’s reflective lyrics. “Prince,” which does indeed have Sheila E type popping drums, has Weaver calling out “If you want, you got me / just lay it all on me / you’ve got a way of making me feel no pain.” Is this about a special someone or heroin or something else? I don’t know and I don’t care- that is, this album, despite being personal let’s you bend it to your whims.

There is a bit of fun trickery here. The aforementioned “Prince” has deep references to David Lynch. “Do nothing” has cracking and buzzing synths that sound like they are breaking, giving the tune a sort of Bauhaus spookiness in the background. It’s creepy and gentle- no easy feat.

Indeed, at the end, Weaver goes full on shock power. “Back home” talks about someone breaking into her house while she’s there. She balances a cold terror with the space-prairie ringing of her guitar. And, I should mention how great of a guitar player Weaver is. Like the country greats, and I don’t want to overstate the slight country spark hear don this record, she’s able to plink out just the right note at just the right spot and let it hang. That’s, she’s not a guitar player, she’s a musician. And that’s what locks this entire record together. It ebbs and flows as a singular piece, tapping on certain touchstones without resting there. It’s big, it’s deep, it’s puzzling, and it’s a uniquely strange and comforting Maura Weaver records.