Photo courtesy artist

James Vincent McMorrow just released his new album Grapefruit Season, and let's go ahead and get this out of the way: it's just perfect.

We've long known McMorrow is an incredible songwriter and gifted vocalist, but after multiple albums, this latest record shows us new levels of passion and skill. It's earnest and raw, yet extremely polished, worthy of an artist whose debut album was released 11 years ago.

"This last year has been a massive lesson in patience for all of us," explains McMorrow. "But I don’t feel any more patient than I did before, in fact the opposite; I feel impatient. I had this album finished last year and then the world stopped and I had to stop. I remember sitting in my car crying after I heard that we'd be parking the work until 2021, and then I wrote ‘Waiting.’ It’s a song about feeling sorry for myself, and then going home and talking to the one person in my life who understands just how awkward a fit all of this is for me, and who loves me for the actual human I am and not what I curate in order to feel like the person I need to be."

He adds: "I don’t know if any of this makes any sense—but Grapefruit Season is about embracing the idea nothing makes sense. None of it is supposed to be linear. Music isn't some holy grail to a greater meaning, it's supposed to remove you from where you are for a moment and take you somewhere else. And I'm not saying that isn't a transcendent thing, because when it's done well it truly is. And I believe/hope I have done it well with this album. I'm just saying that at the end of the day, music is a simple idea unadorned idea that doesn't need bells and whistles to make it work.... unless you're making an album where the only instruments are bells and whistles, then you definitely need them to make it work.”

As we previously mentioned, the record features production from McMorrow himself alongside Paul Epworth and Lil Silva.

Hear Grapefruit Season below.