The middle album in Eric Church’s ambitious 2021 project Heart & Soul, the six-song segment titled &, is now available to the wider public for the first time. The set was previously only on offer to members of his Church Choir fan base, but can now be enjoyed by the country superstar’s full audience on standard CD, black vinyl, and via digital platforms.
Like the chart-topping records that bookended it, Heart and Soul, & came from Church’s marathon sojourn in rural North Carolina, where he wrote and recorded a song each day, from start to finish, for close to a month. The three-part release as a whole won Church Grammy nomination for Best Country Solo Performance, as well as drawing huge critical and commercial acclaim.
Indeed, Church replaced himself at the top of the all-genre Top Album Sales chart in consecutive weeks, placing all three albums in the Top 10 simultaneously. He became the first country artist to occupy the two top spots on the Billboard Vinyl Albums chart in the same week since that list was introduced in 2011, with Soul and &.
Entertainment Weekly described the & set, produced by Jay Joyce, as “Small but mighty, the six-song collection simmers on vulnerable hits.” The Wall Street Journal said that Church was “knowledgeable and respectful of country’s history, but not shackled by it,” while Forbes acknowledged his talent for “super-serving his loyal Church Choir crowd.”
The & album includes the current single by Church, “Doing Life With Me,” which went to country radio in its own right in June 2022. It’s now in its fourth week on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart. He wrote it with previous collaborators Casey Beathard (“Mr. Misunderstood,” “Hell Of A View”) and Jeffrey Steele (“Stick That In Your Country Song”) as an expression of his gratitude to his steadfast supporters through his musical career.
Buy or stream the ‘&’ album.
