New Music Albums: SINGIN' TO AN EMPTY CHAIR (Ratboys)

BUY NOW FROM AMAZON

Artist:
Ratboys

Genre:
Pop/Rock
Alternative/Indie Rock
Alternative Country

Total Time:
50:46

Record Label:
New West Records

Purchase Album:
CD, MP3, Vinyl,
Apple Music

Release Date
February 6, 2026

Find out more about this album release after the jump.

Purchasing Links

---

Buy the CD from Amazon

---

Buy the MP3 from Amazon

---

Buy the Vinyl from Amazon

---

Buy the Album from Apple Music

---

Product Description: Despite its title, Ratboys’ new album Singin’ to an Empty Chair is not defined by what’s missing. Rather, it’s the beginning of an important dialogue with a close loved one, vocalist Julia Steiner finds herself estranged from. The music on the band’s sixth studio album – its first for New West Records – fills the space that person left behind with 11 songs showcasing Ratboys at the peak of their powers — twangy, effervescent, as confident as they’ve ever been, and perhaps more emotionally interrogative than ever before. The four-piece Chicago band followed up 2023’s highly acclaimed The Window by reconvening with co-producer Chris Walla to begin tracking at a rural Wisconsin cabin before taking the songs to Steve Albini’s famed Electrical Audio studios in Chicago and later to Rosebud Studio in Evanston, Illinois. The results veer from bubbly power-pop on “Anywhere” to irresistible post-country on “Penny in the Lake,” along with heart-piercing ballads like “Just Want You to Know the Truth” and an exhilarating detour into the extraterrestrial on “Light Night Mountains All That,” which Steiner dubs the band’s mammoth “wormhole jam.” Singin’ to an Empty Chair also marks the first Ratboys album written since Steiner began therapy, which the singer/lyricist credits for the clarity found across the album’s unflinching examinations of relationship and self. Fittingly, as the album begins by extending a hand into the void, it concludes with a scene of serenity – all while weaving candid honesty, humor, chaos, and whimsy along the way. “It's not all doom and gloom,” Steiner says. “The experience of making this record definitely gives me hope for whatever happens next.”

TRACK LIST:

---

1 . Open Up (05:05)

2 . Know You Then (03:12)

3 . Light Night Mountains All That (05:58)

4 . Anywhere (03:03)

5 . Penny in the Lake (03:52)

6 . Strange Love (02:24)

7 . The World, So Madly (03:11)

8 . Just Want You to Know the Truth (08:29)

9 . What’s Right? (05:15)

10 . Burn It Down (07:06)

11 .At Peace in the Hundred Acre Wood (03:16)

---

     OTHER ALBUM RELEASES:

• New Music Albums: BOYCOTT HEAVEN (The Format)
• New Music Albums: DEAD DADS CLUB (Dead Dads Club)
• New Music Albums: WORLD'S GONE WRONG (Lucinda Williams)
• New Music Albums: ELECTROSOUL (DJ Harrison)
• New Music Albums: NO MORE LIKE THIS (PVA)
• New Music Albums: CAN I GET A PACK OF CAMEL LIGHTS ? (Geologist)
• New Music Albums: NINETEEN SEVENTY SEVEN (Grupo Um)
• New Music Albums: I USED TO GO TO THIS BAR (Joyce Manor)
• New Music Albums: WARMER THAN GOLD (GUV)
• New Music Albums: WORMSLAYER (Kula Shaker)
• New Music Albums: ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT (Buzzcocks)
• New Music Albums: GOSPEL MUSIC (Joel Ross)
• New Music Albums: CAN SUCH DELIGHTFUL TIMES GO ON FOREVER ? (The Soft Pink Truth)
• New Music Albums: FOR THE FIRST TIME, AGAIN (Tyler Ballgame)
• New Music Albums: DREAM LIFE (Marta Del Grandi)
• New Music Albums: LOW CLOUDS HANG, THIS LAND IS ON FIRE (Tashi Dorji)
• New Music Albums: URGH (Mandy, Indiana)
• New Music Albums: MOVE ON WITH THE YEAR (Alice Costelloe)
• New Music Albums: TENTERHOOKS (Silversun Pickups)
• New Music Albums: LAUGHTER IN SUMMER (Beverly Glenn-Copeland)
• New Music Albums: SUNDAY BEST (Nick Jonas)
• New Music Albums: NORMAL ISN'T (Puscifer)
• New Music Albums: MANIFESTE (Tigran Hamasyan)