Eric Church Announces New Album 'Evangeline Vs. The Machine'

Eric Church has announced the release of his new album, Evangeline Vs. The Machine, and revealed when the lead single will land on the radio.

His first new album since 2021’s Heart & Soul trilogy, Evangeline Vs. The Machine will be released via EMI Records Nashville/Universal Music Australia on Friday, 2 May. The lead single, Hands Of Time, is out now and will hit country radio on Monday, 24 March.

Church said of the moving new track, “As I get older, I’m looking for things that make me feel not as old. I can honestly say that when I hear music or see something from my past, I feel like I did then; I relate to what it was then. I really believe that a good way to handle that is with music.”

You can check out the track below and pre-order/pre-save Evangeline Vs. The Machine here.

Along with Hands Of Time, the forthcoming LP features the previously-released track Darkest Hour, which Church shared – and gave all royalties – to support North Carolina communities impacted by the devastation of Hurricane Helene last year.

Church has also detailed a yet-to-be-released song called Johnny. A track that takes inspiration from The Devil Went Down To Georgia, he said: “About a year ago, we had a shooting here in Nashville at the Covenant School. Where my kids go to school, my two boys, is about a mile from that school. The hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life – parent or otherwise – is dropping them off at that school the day after the shooting and watching them walk inside.

“I sat in the parking lot for a long time, and as fate would have it, as I was pulling out, Charlie Daniels was playing The Devil Went Down To Georgia. I remember thinking, man, we could use Johnny right now, because the Devil’s not in Georgia, he’s everywhere. I went home and wrote Johnny.”

Of the album, Church added, “An album is a snapshot in time that lasts for all time. I believe in that time-tested tradition of making records that live and breathe as one piece of art – I think it’s important.

“I’ve always let creativity be the muse. It’s been a compass for me. The people that I look up to in my career and the kind of musicians I gravitate to never did what I thought they were going to do next – and I love them for it.

“I never want our fans to get an album and go, ‘Oh, that’s like Chief or that’s like this.’ Painstakingly, I lose sleep at night to try to make sure that whatever we do creatively, they go, ‘Wow, that's not what I thought.’ I think that's my job as an artist.”