Patron saint of the bum Todd Snider is back from the mountain with news of his first album of all-new original material since 2021, High, Lonesome and Then Some. Out October 17th via Todd’s Aimless Records and distributed by Thirty Tigers/Lightning Rod Records, the blues-based, nine-track album features a new backing band and centers around second chances and a trip to Reno, NV.
Along with the album announcement, Snider shared the lead single, “While We Still Have a Chance”, which he co-wrote with The Black Crowes’ Chris Robinson. The somber track crawls along to Snider’s latest stylistic mutation, a stripped-down, bass-heavy reggae bounce set to the blues.
Sometimes a pebble flies up from the road with enough force to break through the armor you wear just to go out into the world every day, and you remember you’re wounded and vulnerable and, ultimately, weak. “While We Still Have a Chance” has that power. (Maybe it’s because my ex lives in Reno.)
“Chris Robinson and I mail each other different kinds of writings a lot and this song came out of that,” Snider said of the lead single. “When I was trying to talk a woman, or myself, or a fellow musician, or everybody else, into extending the adventure, or suspending the adolescence, and not giving up on me.”
High, Lonesome and Then Some. hears Snider backed by an ace backing band of burgeoning singer-songwriter Aaron Lee Tasjan on second electric guitar, longtime friend Sterling Finlay on bass, Sturgill Simpson keyboardist/saxophonist Robbie Crowell on drums, and—for the first time—a pair of female backup singers, Brooke Gronemeyer and Erica Blinn. Tasjan and Crowell also produced the album alongside Joe Bisirri, blending rock, country, Southern soul, and “dirt-road blues to create [Snider’s] most Southern-sounding record to date,” per a press release.
“Recently, I heard someone say ‘If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention,’ so I tried it and so far so good,” Snider added. “These are songs seeking soul, soul mate, maker, making out and mercy. The muse for this record was the sound of it. We made it on purpose.”
Following in the footsteps of his last album of all original material, 2021’s First Agnostic Church of Hope and Wonder, this year’s High, Lonesome, and Then Some. embraces a similarly loose concept. On the first side of the album, Snider pleads his case to a lover to take him back and go on a trip to Reno, while on the other side, Todd flips the narrative and sings from the perspective of the person he’s addressing. After going through a pile of baggage along the way, he ultimately finds someone new and—again—propositions them to finally come with him to Reno.
Along with the overarching narrative, the new album gets its blues from Snider’s ruminations on decades of loss. In addition to health issues, failed romances, and broken business relationships, all of his mentors have now passed away following the death of Kris Kristofferson last fall—and before that, Jimmy Buffett, John Prine, and Jerry Jeff Walker. Snider touched on this on First Agnostic Church, but has since added several more tombstones, disguising his grief on the new album as “a song cycle about the effects of love on the human condition.”
Related: A Wellness Check-In With Todd Snider [Interview]
High, Lonesome, and Then Some. also marks Snider’s first new release since his spinal stenosis took the lifelong bard off the road for three years, his longest stretch in nearly 40 years. In his time away, Snider dug up his “lost” 2007 album Crank It, We’re Doomed and issued live re-recordings of his entire discography, culled from his weekly livestreams during the COVID pandemic. The “Purple Versions” are all free to download on his website.
Despite Snider relenting in an interview with Live For Live Music last year, “I think something is over,” something new is definitely getting started. He just completed his first batch of tour dates in three years, and with the new album has added 13 new shows throughout the Western United States. The tour will see him backed by the Todd Snider Band, which includes Finlay, Bissiri, Tasjan, and Crowell.
“You ever notice that when someone puts out a new record and you read the interview, they’re always in a good place now and they weren’t in a great place before? I’m not in a great place now, but I’m in a place now,” Todd admitted last year, before saying the most Todd Snider thing of the entire interview: “I don’t know if I think there’s a great place or a bad place. I’m just trying to get away from that kind of thinking.”
Pre-order the new Todd Snider album High, Lonesome and Then Some. physically or digitally and check out “While We Still Have A Chance”. Find tickets and tour dates on his website.
Todd Snider — “While We Still Have A Chance”
HIGH, LONESOME AND THEN SOME. Tracklist
1. THE HUMAN CONDITION
2. UNFORGIVABLE (WORST STORY EVER TOLD)
3. WHILE WE STILL HAVE A CHANCE
4. ONE, FOUR FIVE BLUES
5. ITS HARD TO BE HAPPY (Y IS FOR REDNECK)
6. STONER YODEL #2 (RAELYN NELSON)
7. OLDER WOMEN
8. HIGH, LONESOME AND THEN SOME.
9. THE TEMPTATION TO EXIST.
