What comes after weathering a season of darkness? For The Red Clay Strays, it sounds a lot like a summer revival. The kind that rises out of the humid Southern night, folding sorrow into song, where voices swell, hands lift, and people come worn down, searching for something they can’t quite name. Revivals aren’t tidy. They’re full of false starts, cracked voices, and imperfect moments. But somewhere between the first hymn and the final amen, something shifts. On Grateful, the Mobile, Alabama six-piece channels that same spirit, transforming their journey into something communal, even if it occasionally stumbles.

Blending roots rock, gospel, and Gulf Coast soul, the album feels at home beneath a canvas tent, marking a transition point rather than a pristine product. Following the grit of Moment of Truth and the reckoning of Made By These Moments, this chapter leans into faith, reflection, and the uneasy grace of making it through. Like stepping into a morning revival and walking back into the night air, Grateful doesn’t promise perfection. It offers something more honest: the feeling that change is possible, even if you’re still figuring out what that looks like.

With sparks of influence from The Strokes, Jack White, and Elvis Presley, Brent Cobb’s production gives the band space to lean into their genre-blending instincts while carving out room for experimentation. The stripped-down, piano-led opening of ‘Demon In Your Choir’ unfolds into a gospel-soaked, rockabilly standout. The hip-shaking nostalgia of ‘Don’t Wanna Know’ pulses with swamp-rock urgency, serving as both an early highlight and a counterpoint to the album’s more faith-seeking moments, a reminder that life’s darker instincts never fully disappear.

With the jolting ‘People Hatin’,’ that urgency begins to unravel. While built on intriguing ideas, its focus grows cloudy, making for a more challenging listen. It feels less like a fully realized statement and more like a voice-note still searching for its final form. Similarly, on ‘Can’t Fix You,’ the band’s live-leaning production swallows Coleman’s hushed delivery, muting the clarity of what should be a tender confession.

Yet on the stirring ‘Do Today,’ the focus lands exactly where it should, on Coleman’s soaring, emotive vocals, rich with nuance. He sings with a kind of abandon that feels deeply personal, less a performance and more a moment of release. ‘Do Today’ leads naturally into the album’s centerpiece, the title-track. With the addition of a backing choir, the band sounds fully unified, bracing for what lies ahead. As Coleman softly sings, “When I sit at my table… not one empty chair,” his conviction cuts through the darkness, letting light break through. It’s a satiating warmth that feels almost impossible to resist.

It is in these unrestrained moments of testimony that Grateful finds its staying power. The album captures a band on the edge of something larger, one committed to carrying light into darker corners and offering something steady, human, and transformative. In 2026, that kind of honesty feels like a rare luxury, and one worth rejoicing.

7.4 / 10

Soda Canter

Listen to one of the stand-outs from the album, ‘Do Today’, below:

Track Ratings:

1. Demons In Your Choir - 8.3 / 10

2. Don’t Wanna Know - 9.1 / 10

3. Walking Away - 6.8 / 10

4. People Hatin’ - 5.2 / 10

5. Revival - 6.7 / 10

6. Down South - 7.5 / 10

7. If I Didn’t Know You - 7.2 / 10

8. Fool’s Gold - 6.3 / 10

9. Can’t Fix You - 5.9 / 10

10. Do Today - 8.7 / 10

11. Grateful - 8.9 / 10

If You Like, Listen To:

Jack White - No Name

Aretha Franklin - Amazing Grace: The Complete Recordings (Live)

Elvis Presley - From Elvis In Memphis

Swamp Dogg - Blackgrass: From West Virginia to 125th St.

The Strokes - Is This It

For more on The Red Clay Strays, see below: