Grateful
The Red Clay Strays
Grateful is the third studio album by Mobile, Alabama six-piece The Red Clay Strays, released on June 5, 2026 via HBYCO Records/RCA Records. The album was produced once again by nine-time Grammy winner Dave Cobb — who also helmed their acclaimed 2024 album Made By These Moments — and spans eleven tracks that the band describes as music that can "spill out of dance halls on Saturday night and fill church steeples on Sunday morning in equal measure." Where their previous records were defined by a rawer, harder-edged Southern rock and Americana sound, Grateful leans more deliberately into themes of faith, reflection, and communal grace, with Christian symbolism and gospel feeling woven throughout without the album being a strictly devotional record. Lead vocalist Brandon Coleman, long known for wearing his faith on his sleeve in live performance, channels that spiritual intensity into songs that move fluidly between Southern rock muscle, Gulf Coast soul, honky-tonk, and revival-tent gospel.
The eleven-track record opens with "Demons in Your Choir," a sharp-edged indictment of those who exploit religious faith for sinister ends, before moving through slide-guitar-driven moments of betrayal, high-energy Southern rock nods to Ronnie Van Zant on "Down South," the tender Valentine's Day single "If I Didn't Know You," and the sprawling centerpiece "Revival." As Rolling Stone observed, the album establishes the Strays not merely as a rising country act but as a genuine rock and roll band with deep spiritual roots, capable of competing with anything in the genre. Holler rated it 7.4/10 and called it "a transition point rather than a pristine product," while Country Central scored it 8/10, noting the record is "a lot more confident than its two predecessors, knowing how to properly reel in dramatics for the sake of poignancy." The album is being supported by the band's biggest headline tour to date, the Grateful Tour '26.
Grateful
The Red Clay Strays
Grateful is the third studio album by Mobile, Alabama six-piece The Red Clay Strays, released on June 5, 2026 via HBYCO Records/RCA Records. The album was produced once again by nine-time Grammy winner Dave Cobb — who also helmed their acclaimed 2024 album Made By These Moments — and spans eleven tracks that the band describes as music that can "spill out of dance halls on Saturday night and fill church steeples on Sunday morning in equal measure." Where their previous records were defined by a rawer, harder-edged Southern rock and Americana sound, Grateful leans more deliberately into themes of faith, reflection, and communal grace, with Christian symbolism and gospel feeling woven throughout without the album being a strictly devotional record. Lead vocalist Brandon Coleman, long known for wearing his faith on his sleeve in live performance, channels that spiritual intensity into songs that move fluidly between Southern rock muscle, Gulf Coast soul, honky-tonk, and revival-tent gospel.
The eleven-track record opens with "Demons in Your Choir," a sharp-edged indictment of those who exploit religious faith for sinister ends, before moving through slide-guitar-driven moments of betrayal, high-energy Southern rock nods to Ronnie Van Zant on "Down South," the tender Valentine's Day single "If I Didn't Know You," and the sprawling centerpiece "Revival." As Rolling Stone observed, the album establishes the Strays not merely as a rising country act but as a genuine rock and roll band with deep spiritual roots, capable of competing with anything in the genre. Holler rated it 7.4/10 and called it "a transition point rather than a pristine product," while Country Central scored it 8/10, noting the record is "a lot more confident than its two predecessors, knowing how to properly reel in dramatics for the sake of poignancy." The album is being supported by the band's biggest headline tour to date, the Grateful Tour '26.