After months of slowly teasing fans with new music, Eric Church will return with his new album on May 2, when he releases Evangeline Vs. the Machine. The eight-song album marks his first release since 2021’s Heart & Soul triple project, and judging from the songs the upcoming album has already yielded, the project promises to be one of Church’s most creative and introspective to date.
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“An album is a snapshot in time that lasts for all time,” Church said in a statement. “I believe in that time-tested tradition of making records that live and breathe as one piece of art — I think it’s important. I’ve always let creativity be the muse. It’s been a compass for me. The people that I look up to in my career and the kind of musicians I gravitate to never did what I thought they were going to do next — and I love them for it. I never want our fans to get an album and go, ‘Oh, that’s like Chief or that’s like this.’ Painstakingly, I lose sleep at night to try to make sure that whatever we do creatively, they go, ‘Wow, that’s not what I thought.’ I think that’s my job as an artist.”
As with his previous projects, the new album features a mix of solo writes and collaborative efforts. Church has writing collaborations with several top-shelf songwriters, including Casey Beathard, Scooter Carusoe and Luke Laird, while also contributing three solo writes.
The project’s lead radio single, “Hands of Time,” impacts country radio on March 24. “As I get older, I’m looking for things that make me feel not as old,” Church said of the song via a statement. “I can honestly say that when I hear music or see something from my past, I feel like I did then; I relate to what it was then. I really believe that a good way to handle that is with music.”
in February, Church previewed another song from the album, “Johnny,” at the Country Radio Seminar during the annual UMG Nashville showcase at the Ryman Auditorium. The song is a reinterpretation inspired by The Charlie Daniels Band’s “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” and also inspired by the tragic school shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School in 2023.
The album also features “Darkest Hour,” which Church previously released to raise funds to aid those impacted by Hurricane Helene, with all of Church’s publishing royalties on the song going to aid those in his homestate of North Carolina.
The album closes with a cover of Tom Waits’s “Clap Hands.”
See the full tracklist for Church’s Evangeline Vs. The Machine below:
- “Hands of Time” (Eric Church, Scooter Carusoe)
- “Bleed on Paper” (Tucker Beathard, Casey Beathard, Monty Criswell)
- “Johnny” (Eric Church, Luke Laird, Brett Warren)
- “Storm In Their Blood” (Eric Church)
- “Darkest Hour” (Eric Church)
- “Evangeline” (Eric Church, Luke Laird, Barry Dean)
- “Rocket’s White Lincoln” (Eric Church)
- “Clap Hands” (Tom Waits)
