Kaylee Bell - Cowboy Up (2025) Hi-Res

These songs equally tackle giddy romance and artistic reverence.
Kaylee Bell’s fourth album finds the Aotearoa New Zealand-based singer-songwriter tapping a serious romantic streak and proudly pointing to her forebears. The love songs include the opening title track—a fizzy tune about taking a chance on a new relationship—as well as the sing-along “Ring on It” and “Red Dirt Romeo”, a pop-edged tale of the titular hero and a “smalltown Juliet” who just might make sparks together. Like Bell’s 2019 single “Keith”, it was inspired by Keith Urban, and that’s not the only affectionate tip of her cowboy hat here. She does a lighter version of Natalie Imbruglia’s angsty 1997 hit “Torn”, and salutes another late-’90s staple in “Song for Shania”. Bell sings sweetly about Twain showing her how to be a wife, a mother and a rock star “at the same damn time”, setting the table nicely for the portrait of new parenthood that is the closing “Heartbeat”. Retracing the arc from first kiss to shopping for baby supplies, Bell celebrates change as an exciting fact of life. “We don’t know what’s comin’ next,” she sings, already sounding every bit like an overjoyed mum.