Judah & The Lion

To paraphrase John Lennon, life is what happens when you’re busy making other albums. After recording 2022’s Revival, singer-songwriter Judah Akers decided to creatively face the fact that his own life had imploded.

Over their decade as Nashville’s crossover folk heroes Judah & the Lion, Akers and mandolinist Brian Macdonald had built a strong enough foundation to explore both darkness and light. Not long after college, the hardcore fans of the Lumineers and Mumford & Sons made their 2014 debut, Kids These Days, then broke through with the genre-blending Folk Hop‘n’Rollin 2016.With2019’sPep Talks, they revealed the musical confidence to grapple with real life struggles, setting Akers’ candid dispatches on alcoholism and family trauma to their cohering mix of acoustic roots and Alt Rock. But throughout the creation of 2022’s Revival, after the departure of longtime banjo player Nate Zuercher, Akers kept a tight lid on some grinding personal agony that was keeping him frozen, creatively and in life.