There are artists who make records for playlists, and there are artists who make records for survival. Allison Russell has always belonged firmly in the second category.
The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter has announced her third studio album, In the Hour of Chaos, arriving July 10 via Fantasy Records, alongside the release of its first single, “Cold April,” a luminous and quietly defiant collaboration with Kara Jackson, Denitia, and the Explore! Pop Choir.
If Russell’s previous work often felt rooted in excavation, tracing trauma, memory, lineage, and recovery through folk, roots, soul, and Americana traditions, In the Hour of Chaos appears to widen the lens entirely. This is not merely an album about pain. It is an album about refusing emotional collapse in public. About insisting on tenderness while the world grows increasingly hostile to it.
“Things are rough. Things have been rough before,” Russell shared while discussing “Cold April.” “The act of singing with my sisters… is a balm for my soul.”
That spirit runs through the entire project. Rather than centering herself as a solitary narrator, Russell builds the album like a living community archive, threading together voices from across contemporary folk, Americana, soul, and indie music. Norah Jones, Brittney Spencer, Devon Gilfillian, Joy Oladokun, Sara Watkins, Kara Jackson, Kashus Culpepper, Ruby Amanfu, and others appear not as ornamental features, but as emotional co-authors inside the record’s universe.
The result sounds less like a traditional guest-heavy album and more like a gathering. A choir assembled against despair.
That collaborative instinct has always been central to Russell’s artistry. Long before her Grammy recognition and acclaimed solo albums Outside Child and The Returner, Russell spent years building deeply communal projects through Po’Girl, Birds of Chicago, and Our Native Daughters. Her music has consistently challenged the narrow boundaries historically imposed on Americana and folk traditions, reclaiming those spaces while expanding them outward.
Now based in Nashville after growing up in Montreal, Russell has quietly become one of the most respected and emotionally resonant voices working anywhere near roots music today. Over the last two years alone, she earned a Billboard Hot 100 entry through “Wildflower & Barley” with Hozier, completed a celebrated run as Persephone in Hadestown on Broadway, performed tributes to Joni Mitchell at the JUNO Awards, and continued organizing advocacy work supporting LGBTQIA+ communities through initiatives like Love Rising.
Even so, In the Hour of Chaos may be her most ambitious statement yet.
Acclaimed novelist and poet Ocean Vuong, who contributes liner essay reflections to the project, describes the album as music deliberately designed to heal rather than simply document suffering. That framing feels crucial. At a cultural moment dominated by irony, numbness, and hyper-acceleration, Russell is making music that believes emotional restoration still matters.
Not sentimentality. Not escapism. Restoration.
“Cold April” captures that balance beautifully. The song carries sadness inside it, certainly, but also movement, warmth, and collective resilience. The layered harmonies feel intergenerational, almost spiritual, as if Russell is less interested in offering answers than reminding listeners they are not alone inside the uncertainty.
That may be what makes Allison Russell such a singular artist right now. She does not flatten complexity into slogans. She turns it into communion.
With In the Hour of Chaos, Russell is not simply documenting difficult times. She is trying to build shelter from them.
Featured image credit: Mason Poole
