Orville Peck’s ‘Mule’ Faces Recovery Without Softening the Past

Orville Peck has released his new album Mule. Recorded with producer Jay Joyce at Neon Cross Studio in Nashville, the project pulls from the country artist’s full-time five-piece band and a small set of guests, including Molly Tuttle, Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show, and Teddy and the Rough Riders.

Peck has described the period behind the album as “the most important year of my life.” The songs deal directly with sexual identity, self-shame, mental health, and addiction. Rather than keeping the pain at a distance, Mule follows a path through heartbreak and grief toward recovery. In conversation with the Guardian, Peck put the stakes plainly: “I still hurt sometimes, but now I think I have the courage to face it.”

The opening track sets that tone through a harmony stack that is specific and symbolic: Noah Cyrus, Allison Russell, and Emmylou Harris sing words Peck wrote, three generations of country voices placed against his own. That choice gives the album an intentional, almost familial weight without turning the material into tribute.

Mule is out now. Peck’s Man Turned Mules tour begins tonight at the Hollywood Bowl.