Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band

Neither the oaken voice with the slight twang of singer-songwriter Ryan Davis nor the barnstorming name of his Roadhouse Band are feints, meant to throw you off what’s happening. But they don’t tell the whole story, either: Davis is a consummate writer, baptized in the Springsteen tradition of empathizing with and even being a deep outsider but graced with the humor of John Prine and the detail-oriented lyrical poetry of Bill Callahan. And the Roadhouse Band—pals like Aaron Rosenblum and Elisabeth Fuchsia on strings and things, along with Christopher May on pedal steel—are a wondrously open bunch, steeped in country-rock tradition but open to drum programming that might have suited a second Postal Service record or instrumental harmonies fit for a Western rodeo. If there’s anything ragtag or backroad about Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band, it is the characters they so perfectly limn.

Depending on your geographical perspective, Davis is either a Southern or Midwestern songwriter, having lived in both Kentucky and Indiana, states that are liminal zones. His work is indeed indebted to both regions, drawing a crooked line between Harry Crews and Drag City. Davis’ longtime rock band, State Champion, was rowdy and eloquent, but he has leveled up brilliantly with two successive albums under his own name, starting with 2023’s Dancing on the Edge. But 2025’s New Threats from the Soul is a masterstroke and massive breakthrough, as Davis outlines an undercurrent of ever-present despair that’s strong enough to hurt us always but not quite break us, where the heart is a loony bin and Thoreau’s paradise is only a pawn shop now. “I can’t remember the last time/the good times got so bad,” he sings, voice slightly cracking on a line that can crack you wide open.