Nearly ten years have passed since Tift Merritt’s last album, 2017’s wonderful Stitch of the World.

Merritt stepped away from recording new music after her daughter was born, but she certainly kept busy. She has served as a Practitioner-In-Residence at Duke University, collected artist interviews on her podcast The Spark, is a board member for the Artist Rights Alliance, and has refurbished an historic boutique hotel in her hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina. The 18-room hotel, The Gables, is now booking rooms for the fall.

At some point in the past few years, Merritt started getting the bug to write songs again. Her seventh solo studio album, Sugar, dropped a few weeks back.

On Sugar, Merritt picks up right where she left off, serving up thoughtful, melodic Americana songs in her comforting rasp. She has clearly been troubled by the cultural coarsening of the past decade, and many of these tracks find her pining for kindness, love, and connection.

Some might say that makes her naive, ensconced in her liberal enclave singing about the way things used to be. I find it more clear-eyed but hopeful, and after a nine-year absence, I’m happy to have Merritt’s reassuring voice in my ear again.