For a couple of decades America was choosin’ Carrie Underwood, Morgan Wallen, and Jason Aldean before Miranda Lambert; then Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas,” co-written and co-produced by Lambert, turned into the longest-running No. 1 single ever. The timing for a new album is ideal, and Crisco arrives with no shortage of confidence—Lambert may have released a couple blah albums, but not one is half-assed. Crisco numbers among the blah ones, alas, which pains me because for a long time this country act was my favorite pop artist in any genre.

Working with new producer Jesse Frasure and a new band, including hubby Brendan McLoughlin as occasional cowriter, Lambert has recorded a spotless, bubblelicious approximation of late-’70s country disco: the era of Bill Anderson’s “I Can’t Wait Any Longer” and Mel McDaniel’s “Baby’s Got Her Blue Jeans On,” not to mention the late Dolly Parton’s “Baby I’m Burnin’.” A thoughtfully arranged string section supports more than half the tracks. The problem with Crisco isn’t the clean bell-bottomed drag: her buddies Brandy Clark and Ashley Monroe slipped into it fuss-free several years ago. It’s the humdrum writing.

Lambert can inhabit many roles, but she’s at her most convincing when acting feral (the mode that, “Mama’s Broken Heart” aside, country radio has liked least). “Cuttin’ Onions” ranks with the best of her Songs About Stuff. Over Dann Huff’s complementary guitar licks and Aaron Sterling’s exclamatory kick drum, Lambert rhymes “Vidalia” and “tell ya” for the sake of a dork not worth a tear. She, Langley, and co-writer Natalie Hemby slither through “Snakeskin Boots,” a Western noir complete with Ennio Morricone-like ambience about a femme fatale who slips through a hangman’s noose. Playing the most terrifying version of the devil women entombed in the songs by male country palookas, Lambert is fully realized. No wonder her fast ones have trouble going Top 10.

Her vocal ingenuity remains intact. Lambert’s ballad voice doesn’t pole-vault over the arrangements. The interplay between guitars and strings on “Right Where We Left It” is a triumph even before she opens her mouth; the control she exerts on this melodrama about lovers reunited after experiments with other partners matches her character’s suppressed ardor. The orchestrations are at their best on “Two Things Can Be True,” a three-minute sigh as beguiling as an early Lorrie Morgan song: The pedal steel guitars bend from the weight of the melancholy.

So, the album sounds luscious—give Lambert and Frasure full credit. But the unity of mood and tempo results in a swirly-gooey sameness. The wan “Sunset Marquis” and “Cowgirl Curtsy” recall Jessie Ware’s recent dives into theoretical front-terrace disco. Although her winks and smirks in the “Crisco” video could be seen from Pluto, the song itself is straight in every sense. Parton’s death gives the Chris Stapleton duet “A Song to Sing” a sheen of poignance it lacked when released last year; this our-love-is-like-a-good-tune torcher nods towards “Islands in the Stream” with Charlie Judge’s synth swells and Huff’s well-behaved riff. It doesn’t even register as kitsch.

Given Lambert’s involvement in “Choosin’ Texas,” her choices on Crisco signal a genuine attachment to Carter-era aural blandishments. She doesn’t have to diss Aldean or Justin Moore in public when her album and the Langley phenomenon also function as implied rebukes to what country radio offers. As Natalie Weiner notes in her newsletter, in its slickness “Choosin’ Texas” ends up “much more traditionally ‘country’ than the vast majority of recent country hits.” I prefer Lambert with chili powder. Missing from the new album are those marvels of personal crisis management and ribald manifestos like “I Wanna Die,” “Maintain the Pain,” or “Run” that blew open their albums like stealth dynamite. At the peak of her cultural power, though, Lambert can do as she damn well pleases—as ever. Two things can be true.