As the dust settles on another stacked New Music Friday that included a much anticipated new project from Kacey Musgraves, two of the genre’s strongest releases have landed in the spotlight courtesy of Ernest and Austin Snell. From sharp, slick songwriting to contemporary production, there’s plenty to unpack across both projects.

The Holler crew have been listening hard and breaking down the latest releases from across country music’s top tier, helping you decide what’s worth spinning and what might be better left in the queue.

After spending time with this week’s biggest new albums, the Holler staff have their say:

ERNEST’s fourth studio album, ‘Deep Blue’, plays through both as a summertime sway and a love letter to the ocean.

Inspired largely by his writing location, ERNEST personifies the US Virgin Islands, letting its warmth and ocean-soaked atmosphere run through the album.

Whether it’s through the serenity of a quiet, empty beach at nightfall on ‘Same Moon’, or the rapid, wave cutting thrust of ‘A Boat Named After You’, ERNEST and his band expertly blend beach country energy with coastal cowboy flair. It’s a perfect vehicle for Ernest’s slick, melodically-rich style of songwriting that he’s become renowned for, creating one of the most beautiful albums to grace us this side of summer.

Play it through on a summer’s day, on a windows down roadtrip, play when you’re heartbroken or when you’re full of love. There’s a chord that will strike with every emotion and there’s a reflection of us all in at least one of the 13 golden tracks.

“Lorelei” sets the tone for the album from the very first note. It’s reminiscent of his first album, Locals Only, carrying that same laid-back country feel, now tinged with the coastal atmosphere that defines the rest of the record. With “What’s A Little Rain”, meanwhile, ERNEST somehow has us craving a downpour on the sunniest day - if it means experiencing the love this song encapsulates.

If anyone was going to do justice to an old Toby Keith demo, it’s ERNEST - bringing his spirit vividly to life in “End Of The Night”, Keith’s classic sound is reimagined with a dash of sunshine and a refreshing ocean breeze.

Find yourself a ‘itty bitty spot in the bar where the gulf coast breeze tries to play the guitar’, order a frozen margarita, put your phone on DND and listen to this one all the way through. It might just be the album of the summer.

9.0 / 10

~ Georgette Brookes

Country music has always policed its own boundaries, quick to question anything that doesn’t fit a familiar mold.

Decades ago, Waylon Jennings cut through that gatekeeping to ask, “Are you sure Hank done it this way?”, a challenge that still feels aimed at the genre’s loudest voices. Today, as throwback sounds dominate headlines, contemporary artists’ work is too often dismissed as flimsy trend-seeking rather than artistic evolution, their innovations judged against a past that was never as pure as it is remembered.

With Colors, Austin Snell turns the page on that notion. Across seven songs, he gives weight to a modern sound by pairing contemporary production with a kind of emotional honesty that reshapes the ideals of masculinity from the inside out.

Rather than leaning on familiar tropes of toughness or detachment, Snell turns inward, framing strength through self-examination and the willingness to sit open-armed with discomfort. It is not a rejection of tradition, but a reminder that country music has always moved forward, whether it was ready to admit it or not.

The masterful title track employs intricate, Kacey Musgraves–esque reverb, weaving traditional elements with subtle experimentation to create a sound tailored to Snell’s watercolor reflections. When he sings, “Don’t hide your black and blue, I want every shade of you,” with such conviction, the emotion feels drawn from lived experience rather than a cotton-candy fantasy.

On ‘Circles,’ the looping lyrical structure mirrors the repetitive churn of a toxic relationship, each line looping back on itself with uneasy familiarity. The cadence feels conversational, as if Snell is confiding in a friend on a late night call rather than performing for an audience. It is the kind of precise intensity that practically begs for a late-night club remix a la Diplo.

The most striking moment on this cohesive collection though is the tender opener, ‘Daddy’s Eyes,’ which recalls the emotional weight of ‘My Father's Blood’ by Ben Danaher. In a genre that often romanticizes familial bonds and inherited traits, Austin Snell takes a more layered approach, offering an observant acceptance of both differences and similarities.

Colors builds on the promise laid by 2025’s Home Sweet Hell and sends it soaring into the cerulean sky. Morgan Wallen, Bailey Zimmerman, and Tucker Wetmore might want to take notice, because Colors lands like a dynamic, star-chasing right hook. Ladies and gentlemen, here is Austin Snell, a new heavyweight contender stepping into the spotlight in full technicolor.

8.6 / 10

~ Soda Canter

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