Still Coming Down

Wild Pink’s Still Coming Down was released August 21, 2026, through Fire Talk Records, marking the sixth album from John Ross’s indie-rock project. Recorded in a single week at Asheville’s Drop of Sun studio with producer Alex Farrar, its nine tracks combine distorted guitars and sturdy heartland rock with pedal steel, fiddle, accordion, and quieter instrumental details. Contributions from Meg Duffy, MJ Lenderman, and members of Lenderman’s backing band, the Wind, expand the arrangements without displacing Ross’s understated delivery. Written after his experience with cancer and his entry into fatherhood, the album approaches survival indirectly: affectionate observations, bleak jokes, and character sketches explore how ordinary life continues after extraordinary upheaval. Its rougher sound gives those reflections a physical weight, contrasting oversized guitars with a voice that rarely demands attention.

“Box Store” opens with buzzing guitars and references to household purchases and late-1990s movies, turning mundane comforts into a portrait of distraction and unease. “Round of Applause at the End of the World” sets its reflections on the Kennedy assassination against rolling heartland rock, while “Plates Keep Spinning” pairs everyday exhaustion with a mordant objection to the possibility of further obligations in the afterlife. The title track, written for Ross’s son, softens the atmosphere through Duffy’s fretless guitar and Landon George’s fiddle; “Dead for a Sec” adds a memorable clarinet figure and a Lenderman guitar solo. “500 Is the New 250” returns to scuzzier textures and a lonely world of consumerism, phone betting, and drinking alone. The dense mix sometimes obscures Ross’s sharpest lines, but that tension also defines the album’s appeal: small, revealing details gradually emerge from the noise.