Jacob Rountree’s new single “Grace” feels like a decade-long exhale, finally leaving his chest. Written ten years ago and now released as the opening chapter of his fourth album era, the Bozeman multi-instrumentalist turns grief, memory, and family into something that shimmers between indie-folk confession and quietly pulsing EDM meditation. The track you could hear on a late-night festival stage or alone on headphones in the dark, and have it hit just as hard.
Rountree built “Grace” almost entirely by himself in his home studio, drums, guitars, synths, vocals, mixing, and even mastering, inviting only bandmate Zach McKinley in for those final guitar textures. That total control shows that the production feels seamless, every element breathing around the lyric instead of crowding it. You can hear echoes of Pink Floyd’s spaciousness and Bon Iver’s intimacy.
It begins in a soft, expansive hush, with ambient space, gentle guitar strums, and Rountree’s husky high voice easing in like a memory. Then an organic hand-tapped beat starts rapping underneath, adding momentum without ever breaking the trance. The groove comes and goes in waves, spacey and weightless one moment, grounded and heartbeat-steady the next, mirroring the way grief resurfaces and recedes over the years.
Lyrically, “Grace” is a toast raised to those who are gone and to the ones who keep gathering anyway. He sings, “Don’t you lose your touch / Heaven shouldn’t cost that much” and the mantra-ready “Revel in the way we rust” land like hard-earned wisdom from someone who’s watched too many chairs go empty around the holiday table. When he sings, “Power of family, find me in dreams / travel the spaces we form between,” the track lifts into something almost spiritual.
After Truth or Dare was buzzed for Grammy consideration and crowned his hometown’s best album, “Grace” feels like Rountree levelling up again, turning loss into a danceable benediction and proving that healing can, in fact, have a beat.
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Review by: Naomi Joan