There are artists who make music, and then there are artists who need to make music — whose songs feel less like craft and more like confession. Josiah Leming, the Tennessee-born heart behind Josiah & The Bonnevilles, has always belonged firmly in the second category. And with As Is, his stunning new album arriving via Rounder Records, he’s made the boldest, most fully realized statement of his career.
Co-produced by Leming and Konrad Snyder — the production mind behind records from Noah Kahan and Ben Rector — As Is is a 10-song collection distilled from nearly 100 compositions written over the past year. That level of creative output alone speaks to where Leming’s head has been: hungry, restless, and deeply focused. The result is an album that feels both sprawling in its emotional range and tightly edited in its execution.
What immediately separates As Is from anything Leming has done before is its sonic ambition. Rather than retreating into acoustic safety, the album embraces electric textures — a shift that feels completely earned. Lead single “Going Gone” is the clearest proof of this evolution: a high-energy, electric-tinged track that announces a massive shift, built around the kind of small, everyday details Leming uses to tell enormous stories. It’s the sound of a songwriter who knows exactly who he is and is no longer afraid to stretch.
The album’s central themes draw from hard-won experience, weaving together reflection, resilience, heartbreak, and love in the way only Leming can — unflinchingly honest, never melodramatic. The lead single “Hell Without The Flames,” accompanied by a moving video (see it below) filmed in Bogotá, Colombia, offers a portrait of working-class lives that calls back to Leming’s own roots as one of nine siblings growing up in Morristown, Tennessee. There’s a communal ache to these songs — the feeling that he’s not just writing about himself, but for everyone who’s felt left behind by the pace of a changing world.
“I look at my folks in East Tennessee, and few of them seem to be winning in this new world,” Leming has said — and you feel that weight in every track. But As Is is never a heavy listen. It’s the rare album that stares hard at difficult truths and somehow comes out the other side warmer for it.
The signing to Rounder Records marks a significant new chapter for an artist who has spent years earning every single listener the hard way — from warehouse worker back to touring musician, from viral TikTok covers to sold-out headline runs. In 2024 alone, Josiah & The Bonnevilles completed a sold-out 33-date headline tour and appeared at Newport Folk Festival, Bonnaroo, and Lollapalooza — a trajectory that makes the arrival of As Is feel like a proper coronation. Noise11Noise11
This is the album that cements Josiah Leming not as a folk curiosity or a streaming anomaly, but as one of the most vital American singer-songwriters working today. As Is — raw, electric, and completely unguarded — is exactly what it promises to be.
As Is will be released May 8, 2026 via Rounder Records.