Miley Cyrus has built her reputation on her ability to flow between genres and sounds. In the past 5 years she has gone from Disney pop, hip hop and rap, trippy psychedelics, and now country with her new album “Younger Now.” Even with her constantly changing sound, each era of her music has been undeniably personal and unabashedly honest. But while the whole point of this new album is to show Miley going back to her country grassroots in her supposed “most personal album to date,” this is by far her least honest album.

Even before the album’s release while Miley was promoting the lead single “Malibu,” Miley made a point to tell the world she had quit doing drugs and is a good girl now. She retired her crazy outfits in favor of cowboy boots. She was clearly pushing a new image, so clearly it felt forced and artificial.

What has always been great about Cyrus is that she does whatever she wants and doesn’t care about what the press or critics think. But she seems to have abandoned this carefree spirit and is trying to convince us that she has matured into a “serious artist.” The only problem is she didn’t have to persuade us; her music and raw talent already spoke for itself.

Unfortunately, “Younger Now” didn’t live up to the expectations manifested by Cyrus in those PR stunts. The album is good, but is not profound in the ways Bangerz or Dead Petz was. The sound — hippie inspired, country-twang infused pop-rock —  Cyrus is going for is executed well and is fun to listen to, but as each song goes it becomes a blur of guitar riffs and her familiar croon that makes it hard to distinguish when one song starts and stops. Overall the album is forgettable with only a few standout moments.

This is disappointing because Cyrus has proven she can have complete demand over ballads in the country genre. A couple years ago she covered Dolly Parton’s “Jolene,” Paul Simon’s “50 ways to leave your lover,” and Melanie Safka’s “Look What They’ve Done To My Song” in her Backyard Sessions that showed the raw emotion and power in her voice she was capable of evoking within the country genre. The songs off of Younger Now don’t show Cyrus’s vocal range to the best of her abilities and leave the listener wishing there was more.

The two main singles Malibu and Younger Now are breezy, catchy crowd pleasers obviously written to show the metamorphosis Miley has supposedly underwent in the last two years. They feel contrived to fit her new image instead of speaking from the heart, like her past singles “Wrecking Ball” and “Adore You.”

There are some songs on the album that shine bright. “Weeks Without You” is a soulful ballad that showcases Cyrus’s low register well and is the best song on the album. “Rainbowland” is a lively duet with Parton that has a childlike joy and hopefulness in the lyrics. “Miss You So Much” is a smooth, slower ballad about Cyrus missing the love of her life.

Cyrus is one of the most talented artists of her generation; her unconventional nature, lower vocal register, wide range, and distinctive, beautiful voice has raised the bar for what it means to be a pop star today. She had so much potential to make a truly great country album, but Younger Now fell short. Whether she decides to be a chameleon once more and shift to another identity next album or fine tune this sound, hopefully Cyrus produces music that supports and shows off her talent while also staying undeniably Miley.