Americana storyteller has returned with his double-LP ‘All Set The Bone’, only a year after the success of 2025’s ‘Burnover’. The record is a triumph of distorted guitar, bursts of percussion and piano flourishes across 13 tracks and 66 minutes.
The album was recorded live and wears this rawness as a badge of honour. ‘Loser’s Prize’, undoubtedly one of the standout tracks, finishes with an 80-second flurry, as powerful drums, bluesy strokes on the piano and high-pitched guitar scratches complement each other as they take rapid turns at centre stage. The tightness of the finale is perhaps not a surprise when you consider the album was produced by Grammy Award-winning . In this sense, the album presents something of a contradiction. The record is raw and unpolished, but this apparent looseness is carefully calibrated.
Freeman shared with CLASH that he “wanted it to sound like you could hear the relationship between the instruments”, and perhaps the album excels most in these moments. Take ‘Decade’. Just after Freeman proclaims “Whatever you’re scared to lose / I promise there was nothing coming anyway”, encouraging the song’s subject to throw caution to the wind, so does the instrumental composition for a brief interlude. The trumpet’s solemn melody plays over the crash of cymbals and the band’s arrangement before the final verse, its brighter tune forcing a smile to creep in behind Freeman’s vocals.
Sonically, ‘All Set The Bone’ rarely settles into either outright exuberance or gloom. Alt-rock positivity comes to the fore through catchy guitar twangs on ‘Indu’, upon which Freeman laments the passage of time: “These days come so quick, these nights go so quick now”. The subject matter can be heavy, but Freeman repeatedly allows brighter musical moments to puncture the gloom.
Lyrically, the album spins stories and concocts characters in a style typical of the folk that Freeman draws inspiration from. The stories are an intriguing mix of both the personal and political, but never too on the nose. The personal, at times, encourages reflection, such as on the aforementioned ‘Loser’s Prize’: “When I’m alone I can be anyone but when I’m with you I’m me”.
Freeman uses these tales to create almost a parallel universe as he holds up a warped mirror to modern America, with its characters carrying the weight of what that entails. On ‘Cahokia’, there’s a “voter with some credit card debt”, while on ‘Totaled’, a character’s body “turns to ground beef” as they sit in the “morgue of mechanical failure”, mourning the death of a loved one. The lyricism is consistently thought-provoking, while also inciting wonder through the tales it tells.
If the album’s appeal lies in the friction between its rougher rock instincts and its more traditional sensibilities, ‘Untitled 10’ might be its clearest distillation. The distorted guitar riffs introduce Freeman’s slightly strained vocals addressing feelings of isolation and holding on to the past – “everyone who’s come to the party is now a bug in amber cast”. As the song progresses, the tempo slows and melancholic violins make an appearance, evoking a bluegrass fiddle. The shift captures much of what makes the album work: its ability to move between sounds and moods without ever feeling completely settled in one place.
‘All Set The Bone’ works because none of these elements exist in isolation. The live recording gives the songs their volatility; the storytelling gives that volatility a human centre; and the album’s movement between alt-rock, blues and Americana keeps it difficult to pin down. Taken individually, these factors would be cause to enjoy All Set The Bone. The combination makes a compelling case for All Set The Bone as one of 2026’s best in class.
9/10