Relapse, Lies, & Betrayal

Warren Zeiders previewed this sprawling double album with 2024’s Relapse, a tight 10-song collection of down-and-out country songs with hard-rock edges. Now, the Pennsylvania-born athlete turned singer-songwriter has fleshed out the project with 11 new tracks. He uses these new tunes both to deepen Relapse’s themes of heartache and substance abuse as well as to shake up its original sequence, which is rearranged somewhat here and makes space for a fuller portrait of Zeiders’ style of country music. Highlights of the new material include “Everything Comes to Go Away,” a soulful cut co-written by teenage wunderkind Ben Goldsmith, and “Love in Letting Go,” a tender duet with Lanie Gardner. Of course, Relapse favorites like “Intoxicated” and “Betrayal” are on the record, too, cast in a more potent light when flanked by songs like “Can a Heart Take,” a brooding and melodic power ballad that puts Zeiders’ narrator on the receiving end of heartbreak, and “Take It to the Grave,” a hell-raising anthem with a sticky chorus hook that recalls the sneakily melodic smash hits from early-aughts rock bands like Nickelback and Saliva.