This week, Carly Pearce gets vulnerable about the sacrifices often required to chase the dream of being in the spotlight, while Kashus Culpepper returns with smoldering track about heartbreak and denial. Also issuing new songs this week are Muscadine Bloodline, Waylon Wyatt, Owen Riegling and bluegrass artist Irene Kelley.
Check out all of these and more in Billboard‘s roundup of some of the best country, bluegrass and/or Americana songs of the week below.
Carly Pearce, “Dream Come True”
In her latest, Grammy Award and CMA Awards winner Pearce lays bare the deep sacrifices that have been required for her to chase her dreams in music, from missing a friend’s wedding due to being on the road, to seeing personal life splashed across the headlines. “Nobody tells you everything you’re gonna lose/ Tryin’ to make the dream come true,” she sings softly, putting her heart and vulnerability at the fore on this unfiltered, introspective track. She wraps the song with devastating final lines about about not seeing her mother as often as her parent grows older, and grapples with the temptation to quit music, though quickly remembering how hard not only she, but her parents, have worked for her to have the career she has. Pearce proves yet again why she’s an artist unafraid of writing deep and etching songs that cut to the core.
Kashus Culpepper, “In Her Eyes”
Since breaking through and gaining acclaim with songs such as “After Me?” and “Believe,” Culpepper follows with this eruption of raging soulfulness, as he sings of the tugging truth that a potential lover, whose “hair shined like sin” and who is as deceptive as she is tempting. “In Her Eyes” froths and surges into a percussion and electric guitar-ripped freefall, commandeered by Culpepper’s soul-scraping, angst-fueled rasp of a voice. Culpepper wrote “In Her Eyes” with Oscar Charles and Brent Cobb, and the song is part of Culpepper’s upcoming project Act I, out in January 2026.
Muscadine Bloodline, “Peter From Picayune”
Duo Muscadine Bloodline delivers its second album of 2025 with Longleaf Lo-Fi, veering from the grizzled rock and full-bodied sound of …And What Was Left Behind and offering up a scaled-back, low-production project that feels tailor-made for the season. Among the standouts is an official studio version of a song the duo first previewed for fans a few years ago. The duo’s Charlie Muncaster and Gary Stanton are heartfelt and unhurried as they unfurl a vivid tale of South Mississippi native Peter, a young man who enlists in the Marines to serve his country when he doesn’t have enough money to enroll in college. They chronicle his deployment overseas and his determination in the heat of battle, with the acoustic-centered production lending extra somberness to lines such as “That boy wouldn’t want a welcome home parade/ Wouldn’t wanna talk about it anyway,” as the song stands as a stellar, humble tribute to military members and their sacrifices.
Waylon Wyatt, “Frostbite”
In his latest, Arkansas native Wyatt delivers a haunting performance, with his voice threading through somber fiddle, organ and guitar. He draws a parallel between the bitter ache of heartbreak and loneliness and the stark, frozen quiet of deep winter. “I’ve been yearning for some burning back in my life/ But it seems to me to be more like frostbite,” he sings, as he distills the yearning for love and sting of loss into piercing lyrics.
Owen Riegling, “Phone Call From Home”
Canadian country singer Riegling has been piling up the career milestones this year, signing with Big Loud, and seeing his album Bruce County (From the Beginning) named album of the year at the Canadian Country Music Awards. He follows his breakthrough with songs such as “Taillight This Town” with this slice of polished, swaggering country-rock, which conveys feelings of chasing dreams through long flights far from home, and piling up bleary-eyed late nights and long days — but still knowing that that familiar feeling of home is there on the other end of the line. Here, Riegling offers more evidence why his smooth vocals and vibrant songwriting are making him an artist on the cusp of wider acclaim.
Irene Kelley feat. Kruger Brothers, “Coal Dust”
Kelley teams with The Kruger Brothers as she pays homage to her grandparents’ story of being hardworking immigrants seeking to build a new life in the United States, and particularly her grandfather’s journey of working in the unforgiving coal mines in order to provide for his family. Kelley’s warm, conversational singing style is astutely complemented by warm guitar, banjo and mandolin. Kelley wrote this tender tribute with Bobby Starnes.
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