For folksinger Willi Carlisle, singing is healing. And by singing together, he believes we can begin to reckon with the inevitability of human suffering and grow in love. On his latest album, Critterland, Carlisle invites audiences to join him: “If we allow ourselves to sing together, there's a release of sadness, maybe even a communal one. And so for me personally, singing, like the literal act of thinking through suffering, is really freeing,” he says.

Rooted in the eclectic and collective world of his live shows, Carlisle’s third album, Critterland takes up where his sophomore album, Peculiar, Missouri left off, transforming Peculiar’s big tent into a Critterland menagerie and letting loose the weirdos he gathered together. The album is a wild romp through the backwaters of his mind and America, lingering in the odd corners of human nature to visit obscure oddballs, dark secrets and complicated truths about the beauty and pain of life and love.

Produced by the GRAMMY Award-nominated Darrell Scott and to be released Jan. 26, 2024 by Signature Sounds, Critterland considers where we come from and where we are going. On the album, he takes on human suffering through stories about forbidden love, loss, generational trauma, addiction, and suicide, believing that by processing the traits and trauma we inherit, he can reach a deeper understanding of what it means to succeed and to exist.

"The result is a beautiful folk document of American reckoning and redemption."
Rolling Stone

"...turning out achingly lovely couplets with the sincerity of a young Conor Oberst."

"Through it all, he consistently aligns himself with the outlaws, the freaks, and the lonely folks of whom he sings, a big-hearted display of empathy that makes Critterland a place worth visiting again and again."
SPIN

"Carlisle’s sense of local spaces, his skill at deep readings of landscape, is a primary example of his excellence."
The Bluegrass Situation

"One of the most compelling songwriters and storytellers of our era’
Saving Country Music

"A folk artist with a wide open heart and a finger on the pulse of the underdog, Carlisle crafts the kind of music that will make listeners, laugh, cry, dance, and long for a better tomorrow."
American Songwriter