“Week Without You”—the fourth single off of Miley Cyrus’s comeback album “Younger Now,” coming out Sept. 29—is a twangy tune about breakups. Released Sept. 21, the song returns Cyrus to her country-inspired pop roots, a theme that seems to be present throughout her upcoming album. In this new era of Cyrus’s career comes a more mature and grounded vibe that definitely shines through in her recent music, a complete transformation from her last album, “Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz” (2015).  

Just as in “Malibu,” the most successful single so far from her new album, Cyrus sets a romantic yet playfully cheeky tone early in “Week Without You.”  Her whole album seems to take fans back to the age of Elvis Presley—in her “Younger Now” video, she even impersonates Elvis while wearing a rhinestone jumpsuit, to which her album cover for “Week Without You” references. A song that might play late at night from a jukebox in a diner, the laid-back atmosphere “Week Without You” creates carries light guitar and a catchy chorus that effortlessly lends itself to mindless humming.    

The theme of “Week Without You” has opened some discussion about Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth’s relationship. As Cyrus is notably the only writer on the track, it is likely that she drew inspiration for it from her own life.  After meeting on the set of their movie “The Last Song” in 2010 and dating on-and-off, Cyrus and Hemsworth broke off their engagement in 2013, only to since patch things up and become re-engaged in January of 2016.

Cyrus told SiriusXM in May that she thought their time away from each other was healthy.

“I think people that break up and get back together, that’s awesome,” Cyrus said. “You get time to be yourself. You get time to grow up. I think if you’re growing up attached to another person, you never really get solid as your own being. So I’m really solid, and then he gets to be really solid. And together we get to be two really grounded people. It’s not a half and a half making a whole.”  

These sentiments are characteristic of “Week Without You”; although Cyrus fantasizes about “kissing other dudes” and “laying out in the sun” with all her girls, she ultimately reverts back to her significant other, repeating the phrase, “you know I’d miss you, babe.”  

When I first listened to this song, I wasn’t really drawn to the sound at all—admittedly, it’s not my preferred style of music. However, as I kept playing the song, I started to enjoy its countrified pop sound and came to appreciate how Cyrus’s music has changed throughout the years.  She seems to have found the kind of music she loves to create, beautifully blending a country twang with an oldie vibe, and I’m all here for it.

Song: “Week Without You”

Artist: Miley Cyrus

Release: Sept. 21

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars