I didn’t expect to be writing about Taylor Swift again for a while.

In July, Taylor Swift released her eighth studio album, folklore. Free from the pomp and circumstance that usually precedes Swift’s releases, folklore was a rare gem, with Swift eschewing the bombastic, Max Martin-style pop that had defined her career since 2012’s Red. evermore is a bold continuation of this style, with Swift slinking deeper into the misty woods that inspired the tall tales of folklore. Wondrous metaphors flood freely from Swift’s wine-red lips, the dam of chrome-colored pop finally broken wide by the success of evermore‘s sister album.

A key difference between folklore and evermore is Swift’s intentions. On folklore, love triangles were awkwardly shoehorned in; recurring characters were clumsily placed throughout the album to give it some semblance of connectiveness that the album didn’t need. Because it was largely a move to motivate superfans to pore through liner notes and chart a grand web of tangled relationships, the awkward attempt to create a linear narrative bogs the record in a certain immaturity.

On evermore, though, that clumsy narrative is no longer present. There are more named characters — “Marjorie” and “Dorothea” both show up — but as far as I can tell, there’s no trite attempt to link their stories together. Even moreso than folklore, evermore feels like a collection of short stories dotting the pages of some well-read book lying on a dusty bookshelf.

evermore places its focus entirely on Swift’s songwriting. Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner return, gently crafting soft pillows for her lush words to rest on. The instrumentals are relatively subtle — at times, a bit boring — but it’s rarely to the album’s detriment. Antonoff and Dessner crafted sparser songs, with more room for Swift’s songwriting to shine.

Indeed, her prose is better than it has ever been, and with these emptier mixes, she’s utterly unburdened. The bridge for “Champagne Problems” gently crescendos as Swift desperately spits out a dense verse. As Dessner’s piano plods steadfastly beside her, she arrives, breathlessly, at the climax: “Sometimes you just don’t know the answer / ‘Til someone’s on their knees and asks you.” It’s a cheeky nod to her past songs, full of their silly, fantastical notions of romance. But Swift is grown up now, and has had her share of heartbreak and subsequent media frenzy. She continues: “‘She would’ve made such a lovely bride / What a shame she’s fucked in the head,’ they said.”

She continues to wallow in devastation on “tolerate it,” a somber reflection on a loveless relationship. When Swift isn’t obscured by thundering 808’s, overwrought trap wobbles, and mass-market quips, she can sing quite beautifully. “I know my love should be celebrated / but you tolerate it,” she dejectedly cries. It’s a quiet scream, a rare display of visceral emotion, where she channels every raw bit of anger and resentment into a handful of words. It’s breathtaking.

There are also welcome moments of experimentation for Swift, who has built a successful career on following trends rather than forging ahead. The Justin Vernon (as Bon Iver)-assisted “evermore” is propelled by dramatic tempo change, and Vernon switches on the Bon Iver-vocal processing to great effect. “closure” features a glitchy, IDM-flaired drum beat, crafted by BJ Burton, whose credits were all over Charli XCX’s how i’m feeling now.

Still, evermore is an inconsistent album. Because the instrumental arrangements are generally relegated far to the background, every song is utterly dependent on the strength of Swift’s songwriting. When she falters, the song suffers. “cowboy like me,” “happiness,” and “dorothea” meander along, stuffed with gluttonous kitsch. “no body no crime” (featuring the Haim sisters) is similarly full of clunky lyrics, but its murder mystery premise is so shamelessly over-the-top that it almost works.

evermore marks a refinement of the new career chapter Swift started six months ago. Her pen is sharp, her words are complex, and her stories are vivid. It seems likely that evermore, compared to folklore, will slip by quietly — as quietly as it could for the world’s biggest pop star, anyway. All of the year-end lists are out; folklore topped most of them. The Grammy nominations are posted; folklore is a clear frontrunner to win several. evermore doesn’t have a hooky single designed to move metric tons of merch, a-la the cardigans of “cardigan.” Still, the tales told on evermore are more mature, more intimate, and more carefully crafted than those on its sister album. evermore is an absolute triumph of songwriting, and a testament to Swift’s longevity.

It’s thrilling to witness an artist realize her full potential, where her unique ability to weave fantastical stories isn’t obscured by an overt need to be marketable or to appeal to every demographic under the sun: Swift has finally attained a level of peace and comfort that so many artists spend a lifetime searching for. Over the past six months, I can’t help but wonder how the same woman responsible for “Hey kids! Spelling is fun!“ is suddenly writing sensual, lush lines like “Now you hang from my lips / like the Gardens of Babylon.” Then, I look back at “All Too Well.” At “Dear John.” At the dozens of songs I listened to a decade ago, where Swift made her heartbreak into my heartbreak, her joy into my joy, and I can see that the signs were always there.

Taylor Swift retreats deeper into lush, opaque terrain on evermore