clay_m
Each song is unique and beautiful, perfect for feeling alive in early spring after a cold ass winter. Beautiful lyrics and meaning within each song. “What’s Right?” had me doing the air guitar in the middle of my campus quad
Favorite track: What’s Right?.
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Despite its title, Ratboys’ new album Singin’ to an Empty Chair is not defined by what’s missing. Rather, it’s the beginning of an important dialogue with a close loved one vocalist Julia Steiner finds herself estranged from. The music on the band’s sixth studio album – its first for New West Records – fills the space that person left behind with 11 songs showcasing Ratboys at the peak of their powers — twangy, effervescent, as confident as they’ve ever been, and perhaps more emotionally interrogative than ever before. The four-piece Chicago band followed up 2023’s highly acclaimed The Window by reconvening with co-producer Chris Walla to begin tracking at a rural Wisconsin cabin before taking the songs to Steve Albini’s famed Electrical Audio studios in Chicago and later to Rosebud Studio in Evanston, Illinois. The results veer from bubbly power-pop on “Anywhere” to irresistible post-country on “Penny in the Lake,” along with heart-piercing ballads like “Just Want You to Know the Truth” and an exhilarating detour into the extraterrestrial on “Light Night Mountains All That,” which Steiner dubs the band’s mammoth “wormhole jam.” Singin’ to an Empty Chair also marks the first Ratboys album written since Steiner began therapy, which the singer/lyricist credits for the clarity found across the album’s unflinching examinations of relationship and self. Fittingly, as the album begins by extending a hand into the void, it concludes with a scene of serenity – all while weaving candid honesty, humor, chaos, and whimsy along the way. “It's not all doom and gloom,” Steiner says. “The experience of making this record definitely gives me hope for whatever happens next.”
credits
released February 6, 2026
Produced by Chris Walla and Ratboys
Recorded and engineered by Chris Walla at Driftless Cabin (Richland Center, WI), Electrical Audio (Chicago, IL), and Rosebud Studio (Evanston, IL) in February 2025
Assisted by Taylor Hales at Electrical Audio
All tracks mixed by Chris Shaw except for “Open Up” and “Just Want You to Know the Truth” mixed by Chris Walla
Mastered by Heba Kadry - New York, NY
Art Direction, Layout & Photography: Marcus Nuccio
Acoustic and electric guitar, vocals, and lyrics by Julia Steiner
Electric guitar and pocket piano by Dave Sagan
Bass, synth bass, and vocals by Sean Neumann
Drums, tambourine, shaker, and synthesizers by Marcus Nuccio
Piano and tape loops on “Just Want You to Know the Truth” and “Burn It Down”
Synthesizer and tape loops on “Open Up”
Synthesizer on “The World, So Madly”
Piano on “Light Night Mountains All That” by Chris Walla
Cello on “Open Up” by Elizabeth Jordan at Electrical Audio
Pedal steel on “Just Want You to Know the Truth” by Andy Krull at the Rat Haus
Hammond B-3 Organ on “At Peace in the Hundred Acre Wood” by Jenny Conlee at The Panther
supported by 286 fans who also own “Singin’ to an Empty Chair”
When (in 2040 maybe) an indie rom-com set in 2024 uses this song for the moment when two rugged protagonists come back together in an uneasy but comfortable third act reunion, we will all nod our heads and say "Yes. This is what it was to be alive in 2024--we were so beautiful and so rugged and we loved this song." tmausy
The debut from Joelton Mayfield charts his course from small-town Texas church music director to an emerging voice in alt country. Bandcamp New & Notable Nov 4, 2025
