Alison Krauss & Union Station Announce 1st Album in 14 Years, “Arcadia”

Near the end of 2024, legendary bluegrass collective Alison Krauss and Union Station announced their reunification for the first time in a decade, with some 75+ shows to transpire over the coming year. Now we get confirmation of a new album on the way called Arcadia. It will be released on March 28th by Down The Road Records owned in part by Ken Irwin, who Krauss signed with as a 14-year-old bluegrass prodigy.
Joining Krauss in Union Station will be Jerry Douglas (Dobro, lap steel, vocals), Ron Block (banjo, guitar, vocals) and Barry Bales (bass, vocals), along with newest member Russell Moore from the bluegrass band IIIrd Tyme Out. As the band’s frontman, Moore won six IBMA Awards as Male Vocalist of the Year. He helps replace Dan Tyminski who is focused more on his solo career these days, but does appear in the songwriting credits for the new record.
Alison Krauss herself contributes the song “Richmond on the James” to the new album, co written with G.T. Burgess. But mostly she assembles songs written by others for the first album with Union Station in 14 years. This includes covering JD McPherson’s “North Side Gal”—a song perhaps Krauss was exposed to when McPherson was playing guitar behind Krauss and Robert Plant.

Alison Krauss says about the songs on the new album,
“The stories of the past are told in this music. It’s that whole idea of ‘in the good old days when times were bad.’ There’s so much bravery and valor and loyalty and dreaming, of family and themes of human existence that were told in a certain way when our grandparents were alive. Someone asked me, ‘How do you sing these tragic tunes?’ I have to. It’s a calling. I feel privileged to be a messenger of somebody else’s story. And I want to hear what happened.”
Ahead of the new album, the opening track “Looks Like The End Of The Road” has been released, with the distinct tones of the Jerry Douglas dobro complimenting the tune. “It just felt so alive – and as always, I could hear the guys already playing it,” Krauss says of the song.
Collectively, the current members of Alison Krauss and Union Station have 70 Grammy nominations between them. Both their upcoming tour starting in April, as well as Arcadia will be highly anticipated in the Americana/bluegrass world and beyond.
Arcadia is now available for pre-save/preorder.
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Track List:
1. Looks Like The End Of The Road (Jeremy Lister)
2. The Hangman (Viktor Krauss & Maurice Ogden)
3. The Wrong Way (Robert Lee Castleman & Dan Tyminski)
4. Granite Mills (Timothy Eriksen)
5. One Ray Of Shine (Sarah Siskind & Viktor Krauss)
6. Richmond On The James (Alison Krauss & G.T. Burgess)
7. North Side Gal (Jonathan David McPherson)
8. Forever (Robert Lee Castleman)
9. Snow (Bob Lucas)
10. There’s A Light Up Ahead (Jeremy Lister)
January 29, 2025 @ 7:29 pm
Very exciting news!
January 29, 2025 @ 10:05 pm
Take out Jerry Douglas’ outstanding dobro, what is this song? Indie Rock, Adult Contemporary? It’s like something you’d hear in a play at the theater. It’s good, but not bluegrass.
I loved Alison Krauss & Union Station from its inception to (and very much including) New Favorite. But since then, it and Krauss’ solo works haven’t been bluegrass. I’ve been comfortably labeling her the past decade plus as Adult Contemporary/Pop as she’s leaned more into her angelic vocals softly blended with pop instrumentations instead of anything that resembles bluegrass music.
I really want to get excited about Arcadia and feel excited about Krauss and Union Station liked I did when I was a kid, especially now that (thanks to Sturgill and Billy Strings) Bluegrass is cool again, but I don’t know what to do with a song like “Looks Like The End Of The Road.” Maybe it will grow on me.
January 30, 2025 @ 2:53 am
That was generally my first impression as well. It’s not Bluegrass. Which surprises me. I was really hoping for a return to some of the style of music that made them famous in the first place.
January 30, 2025 @ 7:45 am
Thankfully,Ms. Krauss and Union Station have re-united.Pure Country at its finest !!!!!
January 30, 2025 @ 11:27 am
Not sure where to post this comment, so I’ll put it here since Alison once covered Tim O’Brien and they came out of the same revival moment in the 80s/90s.
O’Brien duets and plays on Bonnie Prince Billy (Will Oldham)’s new record. Oldham may be considered too “indie” by some here, but this album was recorded with Nashville session players and he spent time in pro songwriting circles. He’s done albums of Merle Haggard covers and been covered himself by Johnny Cash, so the country bona fides are there:
https://youtu.be/MtQKbwVny80?si=qlWPZO6nH6nAWOYf
January 30, 2025 @ 11:30 am
Produced by Dave Ferguson of Sturgill/Childers fame
January 30, 2025 @ 12:26 pm
Looks Like The End Of The Road sounds like neo-early 1900’s traditional….I guess. Union Station isn’t hardcore straight-up bluegrass. On New Favorite it goes from “Let me touch you for awhile’ which is not bluegrass, to “Boy who wouldn’t row his corn” which is bluegrass.
January 31, 2025 @ 10:28 pm
This sounds more like Blackmore’s Night than Union Station. It’s nice but leaves me longing for their early days. I love Alison’s voice but I loved it more when she was more violinist than vocalist.
February 1, 2025 @ 7:41 am
To anyone struggling with the first impressions of this song: it might help to know the context and the symbolism behind the name Arcadia
The region Arcadia takes its name from the Greek hero Arcus the hunter. in a nutshell Zeus violated Callisto (Arcus’ mother) and Hera transformed Callisto into a bear as punishment for tempting Zeus. Arcus became king of Arcadia and one day while hunting saw and shot a bear not recognizing it was his mother.
The term ‘Arcadian’ has become associated with pastoral euphoria and unattainable divinity in a post-renaissance world. (Virgil’s Bucolics, Arcadia inspired, were influential on renaissance era writers looking to antiquity for inspiration)
Simply put, anyone expecting a record called Arcadia to sound like a bluegrass record is barking up the wrong tree. The very title implies an epic, possibly nostalgic feel for an idyllic lifestyle.
In the streaming era, we forget that the name on the record/cd is there to tell us what we’re buying before we listen to it. it’s why the name of an album is so important.
The very act of titling it ‘Arcadia’ is a proclamation that it won’t be wholly or faithfully bluegrass,
February 1, 2025 @ 9:08 am
It’s also just the first song folks. The whole album might sound like this, or it might be an outlier. We’ll just have to see.