“I’m gonna walk away from a bad day,” Rayland Baxter sings on the aptly titled “Real Bad Rut” off his first new record in four years, True Violet. And in many ways, that is just what he did, going off the grid to cope with a hard time and coming out the other end with a slew of bright-eyed, clear-headed songs to show for it. The 11 he whittled it down to for True Violet are some of Baxter’s best, a return to something simpler, with softer edges than the more experimental sonics of his 2022 release If I Were a Butterfly. True Violet is an honest and introspective account of grieving the loss of his father, the heartbreaking end of a relationship, and then a needed reckoning with a self he no longer recognized in the wake of it all.
ALBUM REVIEW: Rayland Baxter Steps Out of the Rut and Into the Light on 'True Violet'
