Madison Cunningham’s latest album, Ace, is the crossroad of grief and revelation. As we weave through the tracks, we find Cunningham removed from the sidelines and placed center stage with the narrative’s reins firmly in hand.

In a press conference with UMG’s °1824, Cunningham reflected on her evolving approach and relationship with truth. She once worried her songs might be “too one-sided”, but with Ace, she’s embraced the “it is one-sided, it’s my perspective” mentality. With full self-granted permission to tell her truth without qualifications, honesty, intention, and vulnerability are the heart of this record.

The album opens with the cinematic “Shatter Into Form I”—a departure from Cunningham’s usual guitar sound. The track’s cascade of piano keys feels like the prelude to transformation before fading into “Shore”, a song that reminds me of the fading film montage at the end of an old, bittersweet film. That imagery and emotion—the aching familiarity of nostalgia—is one of Ace’s greatest qualities, and one that I’ve found most artists struggle to capture with the sincerity that Cunningham has.

The guitars return with “Skeletree”, where Cunningham asks, “Did I get your love at the cost of my mind?” hinting at the toll of a failed relationship. Then, over the gentle plucking of strings, she begins to tilt the earth with an evaluation of grief for a love lost in “Mummy”, with each new line feeling like a piece of the sky falling. She doesn’t seem to let up either, and despite recalling “Take Two” as being the easiest on the album to make, having taken only a day, it’s no less piercing in its reflection.

“Wake (feat. Fleet Foxes)” is without a doubt one of the album’s highlights. A duet written as a dialogue rather than an individual confession, these two voices could not be more perfectly suited. To me, this song feels like listening to a therapeutic exercise, as if Robin Pecknold were the voice of the invisible person in the chair that Cunninham had been instructed to confess to. Following that vein of catharsis, “Break The Jaw” jolts the album into an energetic and tonal shift as Cunningham finally allows anger its rightful place in the healing process.

Ace is a powerful, deeply connected album with truth, vulnerability, and reflection at the helm. If anything is clear about Cunningham’s evolution, it is that heartbreak is no longer something heard of; it is known. With Ace’s release, the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter proves that there is always art on the other side of life’s twists and turns.

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