Wynonna’s revelatory masterpiece leads the week.
Wynonna
The Hard Truth
She’s spent her entire career to date– which is to say, the majority of her life– surrounded by people who were more interested in what her formidable skills could do for them than in how they could help her live as and express her authentic self. As she sings early on here, “They threw me in to see if I could swim / Didn’t gave a hand to reach out and grab.” That she could and did swim or, in her own words, tap-dance, was a function of her own gifts.
And while she has rightfully claimed space as an all-time great and a CMHoF member, there’s remained that tension in her catalogue of (canon-ready, yes) work, that her voice was being stifled by the expectations others– her mother, most critically, but also people like Mike Curb– had for who she was supposed to be and what she was supposed to say.
It’s telling that to this point in her solo career, she’s credited as co-writer on just three total album tracks, the same number of credits Naomi has.
The Hard Truth, then, is the album on which Wynonna reclaims her time and, with absolute clarity and moral conviction, her voice.
She co-wrote 10 of these 11 songs, and they are, to a one, spectacular and unflinching in their honesty and in her desire to speak her truth to power. It recalls Trisha Yearwood’s 2025 masterpiece The Mirror for how a generational song interpreter has suddenly announced herself as a songwriter.
It’s no coincidence that she’s now surrounded by collaborators– primarily her husband, who serves as her drummer, co-writer, producer, and loudest champion– who understand her talents and want to support her in realizing her vision. Iron & Wine (!), Patterson Hood (!), and The War & Treaty (!) are the caliber of friends and collaborators she is able to command here, a perfect indication of how the album encapsulates her mainstream country, rock, soul, and Americana influences in a way that sounds how a Wynonna album always should’ve sounded.
Still, it’s the perspective reflected in the writing that makes the album a career landmark and among the strongest country records of this or any recent year. She pulls first-person details about what it took to climb out of generational poverty and the generational traumas that resulted from that journey. To say that her relationship with her mother is a complicated one would undersell the stories Wynonna chooses to share in these songs, while “Girl Who Could Sing,” which she sings directly to the late father she never knew, is as vulnerable a song as I can recall hearing from an artist of her stature.
Through all of it, she finds genuine pride in her KY roots– she is firmly laying claim to her spot in the KY music renaissance of Childers, Goodman, Taylor, Noe, and so many others– and the strength to extend sincere grace and compassion, even to those who’ve harmed her.
Hers is a journey of growing up under an uncommon degree of scrutiny and in a family whose difficulties played out in public. The Hard Truth is, at times, a hard listen, especially for those of us with complex family dynamics, but it’s worth it to, at long last, hear Wynonna’s absolute truth.
Sad Daddy
Ozark Shine
They’re a talented lot in terms of musicianship and songcraft, but the schtick too often skews condescending to the source material, like an old-timey stringband version of Southern Culture on the Skids if SCotS weren’t actually in on the jokes. Hoping I just misread.
Lawrence Rothman
Here Lies Love ~ Sawdust to Stardust
One of the most gifted singers in the modern country / Americana space, Rothman digs deeper than ever on their fifth and finest album. This is a difficult listen, as Rothman reckons with how experiences of grief, addiction and recovery, and heartbreak have shaped and continue to shape their identity in ways that require very real emotional labor to navigate.
Rothman’s wise enough to recognize that the sawdust left behind is the permanent product that proves that they’ve put in the work. The album impresses for their refusal to romanticize any of this.
The Shires
Bonfire
Two exceptionally lovely voices arranged in thoughtful and intricate harmonies, singing banal, cliché-ridden lyrics over slick pop-country production so dull it would lull Lady [Redacted] to sleep. Pretty, vapid.
Miranda Lambert
Crisco
During her peerless regal era, her albums were comprised of songs that reflected both a POV and caliber of songcraft that were singularly and identifiably hers. She may be too talented to deliver a truly bad album– this isn’t– but, don’t look now, it’s been a full decade since her last great solo record.
The production, drawing specific references from 70s pop-country that are sure to be dismissed as “slop” by those incurious about the source material because it’s genre-specific, is a pivot that suits her quite well. And she remains a singer of distinct and thoughtful phrasing.
But these songs– but for “Cuttin’ Onions,” which is of a piece with prior songs of hers which focus on a singular object or task– could have been written by or for anyone in the current country space, not by or for the finest artist of her generation.
Kenny Chesney
Silver Sands Marina
His limited technical skill and inconsistent taste in material and collaborators– Lily Meola’s here, but so is Moroney– means this is right at his ceiling. Per usual, the best tracks lean into the cragginess of his aged voice and look beyond his beachcomber persona.
Conrad Fisher
Songs I Sing All Night
Fisher has long been a craftsman in every sense of the term, but there is both a mastery and purity to his work on this collection that reflects a refinement of his considerable skills. The album is just Fisher, his guitar, and his uncommonly lovely singing voice.
The album’s minimalism keeps the focus on Fisher’s songs and his command of familiar, simple melodies and traditional folk and country structures. But it’s the empathy in his POV– there’s a song here that recasts the birth of Christ in the context of current US immigration policy– that transcends.
As albums in this vein go, this scans as more conventional and traditionally country than, say, Patty Griffin’s canon-worthy Living With Ghosts. But it’s of a piece with that album in the sense that it’s the kind of thing other artists would mine for songs to cover, while it’s plenty moving as-is.
Joy Oladokun
Hope is a Heavy Thing
Burnt out from her time in the Americana space, one of the most empathetic songwriters of her generation looks to the past to find sources of inspiration for a better way forward. The adult-pop arrangements skew a bit anodyne, but her writing and singing remain vital.
Bobby Dove
Fortune Teller
A prime example of how traditional country forms can still be used to tell contemporary stories, this record stands as a leveling-up for Dove in terms of their command of narrative and genre. A couple of extra takes to iron out some pitchiness would have been welcome, sure, but it’s Dove’s chickenwire-sharp wit (“Trans Canadian Blues” as a wordplay took me the entire way out) that makes this project essential.
Dove’s identity-forward songwriting centers queer, trans lives in trad-country idioms, and their POV and work are much needed in 2026.
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