What do you do when all the things you thought you could count on betray you? Your religion, your family, your significant other, your society, your own mind? On Mantras, Katie Pruitt finds herself grappling with precisely that question. It’s an album about trying to find a new way to exist and thrive – or maybe just cope – in a world that repeatedly insists on ripping the rug out from under you. It is provocative and relevant and unflinching and so very human. And it is the first genuine masterpiece of 2024.

Pruitt arrived on the scene four years ago with her debut album Expectations, a sublime disc about self-discovery, coming-of-age, and reckoning with a world that is a whole lot darker and crueler than you thought it would be when you were young. Pruitt, who is openly gay and making music adjacent to the infamously conservative and old-fashioned country music industry, wrote candidly on that album about her sexuality and how she’d navigated years of fear, guilt, and yearning for acceptance. Expectations ultimately seemed to sketch out a happy ending to that turmoil: Of the last three songs, one was about her parents accepting her for who she was and the other two were earnest love songs for the woman she was sharing her life with.