First Listen: Sam Barber, Anne Wilson and the Albums You Need to Hear This Week

Some might like to call this a quiet week - we beg to differ. With new EPs from two of country music’s brightest prospects, a third effort from a respected Virginian songwriter in Morgan Wade and fresh projects from two of the most underrated acts in roots rock and Americana, it’s never a calm Best New Country Friday.

After spending the morning listening to all of this week's new releases, the Holler staff have their say:

There seems to be a bit of an expectation these days that artists are responsible for switching up their sound with each new release. We believe, whilst growth is important, it’s not a requirement and it can't be forced.

With reflections on personal growth, rapid career rise, and finding how to express yourself with the world watching, Music For The Soul is an honest and - as always - raw contribution to the 'sad boy country' genre of 2025.

Although not miles away from last year’s album, there’s still something unique and rounded about Music For The Soul, and it might be the feeling of quiet desperation that runs through the tracks. Barber didn’t release these songs into the world to please others, it feels more like it was a necessity to get them out of his head. To stop the thoughts spinning, even if just for a three-minute track.

The Missouri native is evidently aware of this sound label he’s self-created on the reflective ‘Same Sad Shit’, but by kicking off the track with “I know you're tired of hearing me write about the same sad shit in and out/ But it’s all that helps when I feel alone,” we’re getting all the explanation we need. For a young male artist, there’s something huge to be said for the importance of the vulnerability that Barber has always been willing to weave into his words and it strikes just a little harder when he throws out a line like “I’d rather die here tonight / with a hollowed out head and a heart full of spite” rather than keep those feelings buried deep down inside.

Although the ‘sad boy country’ market has become somewhat saturated over the last few years, something about Barber will always set him apart just a little - his words aren’t revolutionary, his sound is predictable, and it's hard to listen without immediately conjuring up a playlist of other similar artists that would follow up his songs seamlessly. It could be that his voice holds more brutal grit than his 22 years should, but it's more likely that his ruminations on life hold the right amount of youthful naivete, it’s relatable and it works: “no matter what you know, there's no makin' sense of why we're here.”

6.7/10

With 'God Story', Anne Wilson delivers a beautiful four-track EP, sharing themes of living life to the fullest and not being pulled into distractions.

Her faith stands strong in the lyrics, woven through the classic country sound that she now does so well.

‘God Story’ opens with a fun, energetic ‘Til The Road Runs Out’. It’s a toe tapper, sing it louder and it will come alive on a big stage. Not just an EP opener, but a full live set starter, ‘Til The Road Runs Out’ is a feel good track that fans will adore.

Keeping the energy high, Wilson runs into ‘Devil Is Too’. With a strong locomotive melody, the vision is clear - stay on the tracks and don’t go ‘where that long black train is rolling’. An ode to leaning on her faith, Wilson incorporates a fun choral section that we could certainly take a lot more of in our country music.

As she reaches the age that her brother died at, Wilson explores the fragility of life and the unfathomable loss of family in the final track, ‘Twenty Three’. With promises to live her life and make him proud, the song is a love letter to both herself and her brother, and reminds us of how precious it is to be alive.

8.0 / 10

The thing about wildflowers is that they grow in the least likely places and against all odds.

The same can be said of prolific singer-songwriter Zandi Holup, who arrived in Nashville in 2017 and, for the better part of six years, was told that her music and sound was too different for the rinse and repeat of Music City's commercial country machine. Lucky for us all, the Pennsylvania native didn't let that criticism deter her, instead becoming a musical sanctuary for the outcasts, the misfits and the others.

On her long-awaited debut record, Wildflower, Holup finds a way to bring an incandescent beauty to the most painful of experiences, one that's one part Alison Krauss, one part Lana Del Rey, a heavy helping of Joni Mitchell and a little splash of Linda Ronstadt for good measure.

Apart from the fact that an 11-song record feels overwhelmingly refreshing in the tiring age of supersized albums, Holup packs quite the lyrical punch in a mere 40 minutes. Opining on drug addition, familial strife, and generational trauma, one of the album's best lines comes in 'Runs In The Family', as she sings "Generation to generation / Same old shit, new iteration".

An enchanting voyage thats steeped in Holup's sage wisdom and poignant lessons learned, Wildflower is stitched together with her undying determination to forge her own path and never get swept down the one of least resistance, a mindset that has served her well... and made for a damn good soundtrack, too.

If you're looking for a feel good album inundated with sunny summertime hits, this isn't the one for you, but if you're looking for a deeply compelling take on the human condition, in all of its flaws and beauty, you've just struck gold.

8.0 / 10

Throughout their new album, Puff of Smoke, The Wood Brothers make some joyful noise. Not because everything these days is fine and dandy, but more so because it’s not.

Together, they confront current challenges with a certain weightlessness and empathy, assessing the human condition with a smile and a hand for the taking. That, however, doesn’t make Puff of Smoke any less penetrating. Quite the opposite. The album is a balm for these trying times, its songs seeping to the marrow of what it means to exist right now, to try and just get by.

With tunes that say everything from “This life is short – live it up” to “I’ll be there for you no matter what” – all of them brief but significant reminders that, while this moment may seem shitty, we don’t have to be – Puff of Smoke is exactly what we need right now. With little doctrine and no set agendas to slog through, its meanings unmuddied by philosophy or denomination, this album is among the most effective of its kind.

It’s among the most eclectic, too. Against a fearless soundscape – the collection leaps between a vaudevillian whimsy and an animalistic verve to the cool swagger of unadorned jazz and back again – the group’s rainy day wisdoms and companionable truths come to life.

8.5/10

With its more pared back production, last year's Obsessed felt like Morgan Wade finding her feet again after struggling to replicate the success of Reckless with its follow up, Psychopath.

On Obsessed, songs like '2AM in London' and 'Spin' felt honest, raw and real in a way that she hadn't sounded in a while. Listening to it felt like watching someone clearing up the morning after a party, delicate, vulnerable and slightly worse for wear as she tried to make sense of the debris.

As the third album in a trifecta that began with her debut, it made a lot of sense that Obsessed felt like it was set at the end of something. Her songs are so often set in the aftermath of relationships, in the rubble and the ruin, picking over the ways things went wrong. Which is why it often feels hard to place its follow up, The Party is Over (recovered).

Wade continues that intense, fearless exploration of her inner emotions across 11 solo-penned songs, much like she did on the ruminative Obsessed, but this time it feels like someone else at the party is trying to get it started back up again; turning the music up as loud as it will go and trying to get us all back up on our feet and dancing again, but it doesn't feel like anyone is really in the mood for a party anymore, least of all Morgan Wade.

Produced by Clint Wells, as the project’s title notes, a handful of the songs date back to earlier writing sessions before Wade signed her major-label deal and have been “recovered” here with all-new versions, and lyrically the songs on The Party is Over (recovered) are up there with Wade's best. Sometimes the production feels sympathetic to what she's singing about, like on the breezy country shuffle of 'Stay,' which feels like it could have been a perky addition to Obsessed, or the bluesy country soul of 'Parking Garage,' that would have sat happily on her debut.

"We’re 19 and lonely with broken hearts / Smoking marijuana in the parking garage," she sings in the coming-of-age vignette. "We don’t understand men / They don’t understand us / We just sit back and light another one up / We talk about the future / We talk about the past / We talk about the good things that never seem to last / We bring things up we’d rather forget / I’m just trying to see past my regrets."

But elsewhere on the album, a desperateness to sometimes try and "rock out" feels out of place with the quiet vulnerability of the lyrics. The songs end up falling somewhere between the soft rock of Alannah Myles and the overblown rock of Bonnie Tyler. It's a shame, because the songs don't really need that much effort. There's always been something so effortless about Morgan Wade, and perhaps with a little less effort the songs on The Party is Over (recovered) might have held onto some of their original, simple charm.

To paraphrase the advice from my old school reports, "Morgan Wade mustn't try harder."

7.0/10

Sunny Sweeney’s Rhinestone Requiem plays like the hum of tires on an empty highway; steady, soulful, and searching.

This is the kind of album that sneaks up on you. It's heartbreak, but the kind that feels mellow and worn-in, like a tear-stained shirt you can’t quite throw away. Across the tracklist, Sweeney drapes her signature twang over lyrics that teeter between reflection and quiet rebellion. There’s a weight to her storytelling here, and a warmth that softens the blow.

On 'Traveling On,' one of the album’s standouts, she admits to the grip her ex still has on her, even as she moves forward. It’s vulnerable and human in that specific way only Sweeney can write;  not dramatic, not performative, just honest. That’s what makes Rhinestone Requiem so special. It doesn’t pretend that walking away means it doesn’t hurt. It just says: it hurt, and I did it anyway.

There’s a quiet power building through every song, and freedom doesn’t show up in a blaze of glory here. It’s like driving alone on a warm summer night with the windows down and still thinking about him, but also thinking about yourself for the first time in a long while.

Sunny Sweeney might be mourning what’s over, but she’s also mourning the version of herself she outgrew, and by the end of this record, she’s fully ready to meet the new one.

7.0 / 10

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