Sugar
Tift Merritt
Sugar is Tift Merritt’s 2026 return to record‑making after nearly a decade, a 12‑song, roughly 43‑minute album released June 26 via One Riot Records. Co‑written and co‑produced with Lawrence Rothman and tracked live at Gold Pacific Studio in Nashville with a small band (including Audley Freed, Robert Ellis, and Eric Slick), the record leans into an intimate, in‑the‑room sound that blends country‑soul, folk, and piano‑driven singer‑songwriter drama. Songs like Finest Feelings, Everyday Singing, Look What Love Just Did, Last Ditch Ultimatum, Sugar, Generous, Someone To Watch The Band With Me, Mad Mad World, Philosopher’s Song, Library of Dust, and others were written over eight years as Merritt raised her daughter, worked as a Practitioner‑in‑Residence at Duke University, and helped reimagine The Gables arts space in Raleigh.
Thematically, Sugar is a beautifully sung meditation on love, work, resilience, and the “sweetness hidden in ordinary lives.” Merritt repeatedly asks whether we are “strong enough to do the gritty work of love,” examining relationships not just in their romantic highs but in laundry, bills, caregiving, and the emotional labour of staying open‑hearted in a hard world. Generous forms the album’s emotional centre as a quietly devastating account of abandonment that begins with just voice and acoustic guitar before building into a tangle of electric lines and tremulous vocals. Everyday Singing, inspired by letters between single mothers Rosetta Rietz and Dachine Rainer and featuring a choir recorded by Chris Boerner, becomes a kind of anthem for solidarity, while Mad Mad World and Philosopher’s Song grapple with histories of marginalization, mental health, and how diagnoses of “madness” intersect with class and gender. Critics highlight how Merritt’s songs balance honesty and uplift: Sugar doesn’t shy away from grief or exhaustion, but joy “is in the bones of it,” and singing itself is presented as a way to offer love, break locks, and find a manageable version of hope in everyday life.
Sugar
Tift Merritt
Sugar is Tift Merritt’s 2026 return to record‑making after nearly a decade, a 12‑song, roughly 43‑minute album released June 26 via One Riot Records. Co‑written and co‑produced with Lawrence Rothman and tracked live at Gold Pacific Studio in Nashville with a small band (including Audley Freed, Robert Ellis, and Eric Slick), the record leans into an intimate, in‑the‑room sound that blends country‑soul, folk, and piano‑driven singer‑songwriter drama. Songs like Finest Feelings, Everyday Singing, Look What Love Just Did, Last Ditch Ultimatum, Sugar, Generous, Someone To Watch The Band With Me, Mad Mad World, Philosopher’s Song, Library of Dust, and others were written over eight years as Merritt raised her daughter, worked as a Practitioner‑in‑Residence at Duke University, and helped reimagine The Gables arts space in Raleigh.
Thematically, Sugar is a beautifully sung meditation on love, work, resilience, and the “sweetness hidden in ordinary lives.” Merritt repeatedly asks whether we are “strong enough to do the gritty work of love,” examining relationships not just in their romantic highs but in laundry, bills, caregiving, and the emotional labour of staying open‑hearted in a hard world. Generous forms the album’s emotional centre as a quietly devastating account of abandonment that begins with just voice and acoustic guitar before building into a tangle of electric lines and tremulous vocals. Everyday Singing, inspired by letters between single mothers Rosetta Rietz and Dachine Rainer and featuring a choir recorded by Chris Boerner, becomes a kind of anthem for solidarity, while Mad Mad World and Philosopher’s Song grapple with histories of marginalization, mental health, and how diagnoses of “madness” intersect with class and gender. Critics highlight how Merritt’s songs balance honesty and uplift: Sugar doesn’t shy away from grief or exhaustion, but joy “is in the bones of it,” and singing itself is presented as a way to offer love, break locks, and find a manageable version of hope in everyday life.