Miley Cyrus Younger Now (Gatefold LP Jacket, 150 Gram Vinyl, Download Insert)

Younger Now is a bit of a sly nod to a public who watched Miley Cyrus explore a defiantly loud post-adolescence: she may be older, but she's not necessarily grown up. The joke is, Younger Now is most certainly an album that announces Miley's mature phase, a record that shakes off the druggy haze of Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz -- an album cut at the height of her infatuation with the Flaming Lips -- yet retains the services of Oren Yoel, a producer/songwriter who collaborated with her on that 2015 digital-only effort. That's the first sign that Younger Now may not be the back-to-the-roots move its retro-iconography and Dolly Parton duet may suggest. Certainly, there are country-ish songs scattered throughout the album -- a hoedown and a waltz, but mostly ballads -- but they're delivered with an arched eyebrow, a distancing effect accentuated by how the album unfurls with a pair of songs where Cyrus brightens up the Californian melancholy of Lana Del Rey. Despite a showstopping perfo