Kathleen Edwards has never been the kind of songwriter you can easily put in a box. She writes like someone telling you the truth before they’ve even decided whether you deserve to hear it, her voice carrying the weight of experience while still finding the sharp, unexpected turn of phrase that makes you pause. I first met her in Manchester after a show in 2008—seventeen years ago now—and even then, she seemed equal parts world-weary and mischievous. Since then, I’ve seen her in all sorts of settings: at festivals, opening for Bon Iver, a London show that ended with us slipping out for a pint afterwards, and most recently at Casa del Popolo in Montreal this past April. Each time, the striking thing has been how she manages to scale her songs to fit the room without ever losing their intimacy. Billionaire, her sixth album, feels like both a continuation and a reshaping of what she’s always done best.
Her last full-length, Total Freedom, arrived in 2020—at the height of the pandemic, when the irony of that title wasn’t lost on anyone, least of all Edwards. It was a record that marked her cautious re-entry after years of stepping back from the business, a reminder of her craft and a quieter sort of resilience. Billionaire lands five years later with a different energy altogether. Produced by Jason Isbell and Gena Johnson, it takes Edwards’ lyrical sharpness and situates it in a more expansive, muscular frame. Where Total Freedom often leaned inward, this one pushes outward, with arrangements that feel immediate, live, even combustible.
The band assembled here matters. Isbell himself contributes guitar, keys, and background vocals, while Johnson guides the production with a sensitivity to both energy and restraint. The rhythm section—Anna Butterss and Annie Clements on bass, Chad Gamble on drums—gives these songs their drive, while Jen Gunderman’s Hammond organ, Shelby Lynne and Allison Moorer’s harmonies, and Edwards’ own acoustic guitar flesh out the details. The result is an album that feels full but not overstuffed, giving her words the room to cut through.
And those words are as sharp as ever. Edwards has always had the novelist’s eye, turning the smallest observations into whole stories. “Other People’s Bands” skewers the small indignities of an industry that too often sidelines women, yet it’s funny in its bite rather than bitter. “Save Your Soul,” already climbing the Americana charts, takes on bigger stakes, its refrain sounding like both admonition and plea. Then there’s “Say Goodbye, Tell No One,” which begins with the intimacy of confession before sprawling into a near two-minute instrumental passage. Rather than softening its lyrical impact, the outro opens a space for the band to stretch, turning the song into something more expansive, less bound by form.
The album’s centrepiece, “Little Red Ranger,” might be one of Edwards’ finest moments yet. It captures her knack for balancing specificity with universality; its story both rooted and open-ended. The arrangement builds patiently, the chorus slipping in like a revelation rather than a hook. By contrast, “Little Pink Door” is stripped to the bone, recorded in one take with Edwards on acoustic guitar, Isbell adding electric flourishes, and Gunderman on piano. It’s a reminder that she doesn’t need adornment to devastate.
Then there’s “Need a Ride,” which musically feels like a spiritual cousin to “Goodnight, California” from Asking For Flowers. That older track has always struck me as one of her most haunting creations, and “Need a Ride” taps into a similar vein. Its jammier coda doesn’t feel like indulgence so much as release, the band finding momentum in repetition and atmosphere. Edwards has always been adept at saying as much with mood as with words, and here the playing itself becomes the narrative.
Her voice has shifted, too. There’s a weathered edge now, less pristine than on Failer or Back to Me, but richer for it. When she sings about loss, or connection, or the absurd resilience it takes just to keep going, you hear not just craft but lived experience. It’s the kind of voice that insists on honesty, which has always been Edwards’ real gift.
The title, Billionaire, is itself a kind of provocation. Edwards has said she chose it because the word is so caustic in the current climate, yet her use is slyly different. To be a billionaire in her framing is to be wealthy in experience, friendship, purpose—the currencies that matter most when you strip away the rest. It’s a concept that threads through the songs without being hammered home, allowing listeners to draw their own sense of what abundance means.
What makes this record resonate is the way it bridges Edwards’ past with her present. There’s a similar candour to her very first album, Failer, but Billionaire isn’t about recapturing youth. It’s about acknowledging the distance travelled since then, the detours through burnout, doubt, coffee shop ownership, and eventual return. It’s an album that remembers where it started but refuses to stand still.
Seventeen years on from that Manchester show, I can still trace the same line through her career: intimacy, honesty, and a refusal to sand down the rough edges. But now the songs feel both bigger and more self-assured. If Total Freedom was about opening the door again, Billionaire is about stepping fully through it, guitar in hand, ready to see what happens when the volume’s turned up and the band’s locked in.
This isn’t a reinvention or a retreat. It’s a recalibration. Kathleen Edwards, still writing songs that feel like conversations, still reminding us that the smallest detail can carry the heaviest weight. And now, richer in tone, sharper in intent, and fully back on her own terms. If that’s not its own form of wealth, I’m not sure what is.
Billionaire is released August 22, 2025 via Dualtone
Photo credit – Mike Dunn
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