Last week I wrote about Kacey Musgrave’s excellent debut album. Well, Brandy Clark is the woman I hope Musgraves grows up to become.

The 35-year-old Washington native has carved out a career writing songs for other people (most notably Miranda Lambert and The Band Perry) but her solo debut, 12 Stories, is a true work of art.

Clark is undeniably a country artist, but her songs share much in common with folk and blues. If she reminds me of anybody, it’s Bonnie Raitt. She has that same world-weary authenticity.

The 12 songs that make up 12 Songs center on fed-up women and the men who’ve wronged them. I don’t know if Clark, a gay woman, has much experience in relationships like these or if she’s just an excellent fiction writer, but her characters feel fully-formed, more like the cast of a novel than a song.

When I first bought 12 Stories, won over by the lavish critical praise, I was a little worried to see that the first song is titled ‘Pray To Jesus.’ I can tolerate a little bit of religion in my country music, but not much.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the song chronicles hard-luck lower-middle-class people whose only hope for escape is the “pray to Jesus and play the Lotto” — activities she paints as equally fruitless. I knew right off the bat she was working on another level than most of her contemporaries.

Every song that followed confirmed that for me, making 12 Stories an easy pick for my top ten of the decade so far.