On his self-titled debut EP, Derby Hill plants his boots firmly in blue-collar soil and sings from the gut. Recorded in Chicago basements and hall closets, Derby Hill (released January 27, 2026) carries the kind of room-tone authenticity you can’t fake. There’s floorboard creak in its bones, dust in its light beams, and an unguarded sincerity that feels increasingly rare.
Influenced by writers and songsmiths such as Steve Earle, Leonard Cohen and John Prine, Hill works in the lineage of narrative-driven Americana. But this isn’t homage—it’s inheritance. His songs feel lived-in rather than styled, concerned less with cleverness than with connection. “Restless and Forgiven” opens the EP with a sense of worn grace, sketching characters who carry both regret and stubborn hope. “Red Honey Wine” leans into atmosphere—dusty, slow-burning, romantic without being sentimental. On “Come Back Home,” Hill captures the complicated pull of family and reconciliation, his voice rough around the edges but steady at the core. “Anything’s Possible Here” offers a flicker of uplift, grounded not in naïveté but in resilience. Closer “In a Matter of Moments” reminds us how quickly love and loss can trade places, its cinematic arrangement swelling without tipping into melodrama.
Hill calls his approach “Neo-sincerity,” and that feels apt. These are songs about survival, about families trying to make it through the day, about stepping forward even when it feels impossible. The arrangements are rich but never ornate; the storytelling direct but never simplistic. Derby Hill doesn’t posture or chase trends. It simply means what it says. And in that unvarnished honesty, Derby Hill achieves something quietly powerful: he makes the listener feel a little less alone.