Patty Griffin is an artist who requires no introduction in these pages. The GRAMMY award-winning songwriter and performer has announced her new full-length opus, “Crown Of Roses”. It is her 11th studio album and first in over six years. “Crown Of Roses” will be released on 25th July 2025, via her own PGM Recordings label via Thirty Tigers.
*Crown Of Roses” sees Griffin once again forming a tapestry from the threads of love, loss, grief, disillusionment, resilience, and hope, shifting between intimate confessions, philosophical musings, and symbolic storytelling. Burrowing into the stories she had long been telling herself, as a songwriter she ruminates on a vast array of themes and deeply personal topics. These encompass the trajectory of women in the 20th and 21st centuries. communion with nature, the sound of her voice after cancer treatment made its mark and the relationship with her late mother. The latter’s wedding day photo graces the album’s cover, set into artwork by Mishka Westell.
The record was produced by longtime collaborator Craig Ross and features musical contributions from band members David Pulkingham (guitar) and Michael Longoria (drums) plus a guest vocal from Robert Plant. The album ranges from spare folk to gauzy Americana and gospel blues over the course of its eight new songs. The songs are said to evoke the scrubby west of Griffin’s adopted Texas and the luxuriance of her home state of Maine. “Crown of Roses” continues Griffin’s talent for translating thorny concepts and finely wrought character studies into songs that speak as much to her own experience as they do to the lives of those who have loved her music now for more than three decades. “If I try to hit things on the nose, they don’t feel authentic to me,” Griffin says. “If I can emotionally dance around things, it feels like I can be more honest singing it.”
Pre-orders/pre-saves are available here.
“There’s secrets I don’t tell ever to myself/I just keep moving” begins ‘Back At The Start,’ the first song released from “Crown Of Roses”.
As the album’s opener, ‘Back At The Start’ sets the rich tone, embodying a rhythmic and soulful shadowy shuffle. The song was written during the pandemic, junked, and then reclaimed. The murky yet pulsating track sees Griffin probing the idea of letting go of the stories we tell ourselves.
“I came back to the song because I like that first line,” Griffin says. “Part of it is about getting on with it, but part is also about staying stuck and going through the motions. It’s really a constant thing to try to be alive while you’re alive.”
