Ethan Johns held out for years to unveil a proper solo debut with If Not Now Then When?, but now a follow-up is right on its heels. He didn’t bide time in the studio either: The Reckoning — a 10-track LP produced by Ryan Adams at his Pax•Am Studios in Los Angeles — was cut in sequence over just two days last year. “I had been on the road for months, and then all of a sudden it was 10 o’clock at night and we’d recorded 80 percent of the record,” he says of the session. “We left the studio to go and watch a movie, and that was it. The next day I came in and I did the next two, and that’s the record.”
The album is built on a narrative first mentioned when Johns premiered “The Roses and the Dead” live last August, saying the set would follow a pair of English brothers (James and Thomas Younger) on a formative journey across the Atlantic and further westward through America. As with his collaborative debut, it will be great to hear the roles of producer and songwriter reversed, delving more deeply this round into Johns’ long-documented synergy with Adams. It’s out on June 2nd; check out the cover above and track titles below.
The Reckoning Tracklist
01 Go Slow
02 Dry Morning
03 The Fool
04 Among The Sugar Pines
05 The Roses And The Dead
06 Talking Talking Blues
07 The Lo Down Ballad Of James Younger
08 Black Heart
09 You Changed
10 This Modern London