After finding quick success with his independently released 2024 debut album *The Prodigal*, Josiah Queen returns with this sophomore record, his first for a major label. The Tampa-born singer-songwriter largely sticks to a similar formula here, crafting the kind of poppy, inspirational CCM that first brought him attention. Highlights include opening track “Yesterday Is Dead,” a rollicking, Lumineers-esque celebration of redemption, and fan favorite “Dusty Bibles,” which finds Queen considering the tension between a life of faith and the comforts of the modern world. A handful of guests join Queen on *Mt. Zion*, including former Maverick City Music member Brandon Lake on “Can’t Steal My Joy” and fellow CCM singer-songwriter Gable Price on “Thief in the Night,” while Northern Irish Christian singer-songwriter Benjamin William Hastings lends his voice to the stomp-clap anthem “I’ll Fly Away.”
Josh Ritter has an unusual name for his artistic muse: “Honeydew.” Determined to reconnect with the ever-elusive creative spark that felt more accessible in his younger years, the 48-year-old singer-songwriter wrote this collection of songs addressed to his muse, recording the collection with producer Sam Kassirer (Craig Finn, Walter Martin) and Ritter’s own Royal City Band. The resulting album is kaleidoscopic in sound and subject, with trippy song titles like “Truth Is a Dimension (Both Invisible and Blinding)” and “The Wreckage of One Vision of You” hinting at the expansive kind of introspection Ritter called forth. Opening track “You Won’t Dig My Grave,” with its chiming piano and rootsy production, doesn’t reinvent Ritter’s sonic wheel, but there’s a new wildness in his voice as he considers the trials and tribulations that have marked his life thus far. “Honeydew (No Light)” lets Ritter get a little weird, as he writes mythical figures like Prometheus into his own personal history while a mandolin, accordion, and synthesizer find oddball harmony in the margins of his tall tales. Other highlights include “Kudzu Vines,” a sludgy, begrudging ode to the “vine that ate the South,” and closing track “The Throne,” a frank and compassionate acknowledgment of the “burdens never meant to be shouldered” that accompany modern life.
Detroit-bred singer and producer Mike Posner is a music industry veteran, but on his fifth studio album, he starts over. After a five-year hiatus filled with illness, depression, and addiction, his first solo album since 2020’s *Operation: Wake Up* begins with a triumphant declaration: “It’s a beautiful day to be alive.” Posner feels stronger than he could have imagined coming through the other side of his struggles, and *The Beginning* is a celebration, as well as a renaissance for one of pop’s most thoughtful songwriters. On “High Forever,” he kicks things off with a spoken-word introduction before reflecting on the triumphs and valleys that make life worth living. “You can’t stay high forever,” he sings.
It’s a golden age for troubadours. Following the end of the bro-country era, a new generation of story-driven, acoustic-guitar-slinging singer-songwriters wearing their hearts on their sleeves took firm hold of the genre, birthing stars like Zach Bryan and Charles Wesley Godwin. Sam Barber is another formidable voice in this still-emerging canon, as he shows on this sprawling collection of songs written over the course of the 21-year-old’s five-year foray into music. Like Bryan, Barber worked with producer Eddie Spear, whose light but thoughtful touch keeps the ambitious, 28-song project from sounding repetitive. Anchored by Barber’s viral song “Straight and Narrow,” *Restless Mind* is a winding, sometimes surprising journey through dying relationships and dead-end towns, with appropriately spare, rough-hewn production. The record opens with “Man You Raised,” itself beginning with a voicemail from Barber’s mother that sets a homespun tone for the songs that follow. With its aggressively strummed guitar and folksy melody, it’s easy to hear Bryan’s influence on this one, though Barber’s story is all his own as he assures his mother “the moon will never steal your son away.” Other highlights include the title track, one of two collaborations with Avery Anna that cranks up the moodiness, and “Streetlight,” a Lumineers-reminiscent track that ups the record’s tempo.
This sophomore album from Max McNown comes less than a year after his 2024 full-length debut, the viral success *Willfully Blind*. On that outing, the pop-folk singer-songwriter from Oregon crafted a collection of songs tailor-made for fans of fellow of-the-moment troubadours like Noah Kahan and Zach Bryan. *Night Diving* doesn’t mess with that formula, instead doubling down on the raw, heart-on-his-sleeve sound that made McNown a TikTok favorite. *Night Diving* opens with its title track, a brooding rendering of youthful regret that recalls the more somber sounds of The Lumineers. Another ballad, “It’s Not Your Fault,” offers absolution to an unknown subject, adding a sense of universality to the song’s titular message. And another highlight, “Roses and Wolves,” is the lone collaboration on the album, bringing McNown together with critically acclaimed country singer-songwriter Hailey Whitters for a duet about the last days of a doomed relationship.
