Singin' to an Empty Chair

Pre-Order Item. Release Date Subject to Change.
Label: New West Records
Release Date: 6th February 2026

Ya know, despite listening to music being a job for me now I still listen to records in my free time and very much for enjoyment, one of the new bands who seem constantly by my side are Ratboys and notably their 2023 album 'The Window'. It was one of those records where you can see, hear and witness a band taking a massive step-up, their power pop, country and mid-west emo was enhanced with rich story-telling, character portraits and a more expansive sound. I'm lucky to be able to have had a full listen to 'Singin' to an Empty Chair' and this record may just be yet another step-up with everything just that little richer and the band now operating at a confidence where creatively they're unstoppable. 

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.”