For those unaware, New Mexico-based Americana/roots-rock singer-songwriter Michael Rudd is set to release his third studio album, Ways of the World, on February 27th, 2026, via Invisible Road Records.

As he did on his two prior releases – Long Way from Paradise (2024) and Going to the Mountain (2025) – Rudd writes and sings about people looking for meaning, searching for understanding about who they are and how they arrived at this moment in time, and seeking some kind of transcendence or even a small truth as they navigate the moments of their days.

“I think we all live on the margins to a certain extent, revealing what we want to reveal to others but keeping so much of the confusion and chaos of being alive inside,” Rudd explains. “The songs on my new album, just like my first two, focus on that inner, more secretive world we often choose to keep to ourselves. Not just the suffering and the desperation and the feelings of isolation, but also that other side of being human – love, beauty, joy.”

In August of 2023, more than 30 years after he last played or wrote music, Rudd started hearing songs in his sleep, songs he’d never heard before, lines of lyrics, disparate melodies, full-blown tunes that were so loud and clear that they would wake him up in the middle of the night. Within a week or two, he started hearing them at all hours of the day and night. For many years, Rudd had been hearing music in the air; this phenomenon would come and go, but by the summer of 2023, it hadn’t happened for so long that he’d almost forgotten about it.

Now that it had returned and gave no sign of leaving, Rudd got in the habit of carrying his phone at all times so that he could sing or hum or recite what he was hearing into the voice memo to save it. He would pick up his acoustic guitar, listen to the recordings, add or create lyrics and verses, change the melody when the initial sound didn’t move him, figure out chord progressions, and sing. Melodies and lyrics continue to come, and two years on, the list of songs has grown to well over a hundred and counting.

Immersed in this prolific and fertile songwriting timeframe, Rudd has recorded multiple albums. In addition to the two he has already released and Ways of the World, his fourth, already recorded, will be released in late 2026, and his fifth, already written, will lead him back to the studio in February 2026.

1. The Water
2. Not Today
3. This Life is Made for Me
4. There’s a Rainbow in Your Mind
5. All the Words You Never Said
6. On My Way
7. Nowhere in Time
8. I’m Going Home
9. Gonna Slip Away
10. The Train is Coming

Writing, singing, recording, and releasing songs has been Rudd’s forte for many years now, and he keeps up his high standards here on his latest recording, which opens on the affecting The Water and the mid-tempo roller Not Today, and they are backed by the languishing ballad This Life is Made for Me, the jaunty rocker There’s a Rainbow in Your Mind and then the low slung All the Words You Never Said is brought forth.

Along next is the gentle, yet rhythmically rambunctious On My Way and that is then seamlessly backed by the dulcet ballad Nowhere in Time, the countrified twang of I’m Going Home, the new set rounding out on the emotive Gonna Slip Away, coming to a close on the melodiously impassioned The Train is Coming.

Fans eager to experience the songs that came, fast and furious, to Rudd and to hear them live should keep an eye on his website and socials for tour date announcements.

This Life is Made for Me - Michael Rudd [Official Music]

Michael Rudd @ Spotify