Remi Wolf Comes Clean on New Album ‘Mud’

Remi Wolf built her name on excess. Juno and Big Ideas threw so many hooks, voices and left turns at you that half the fun was trying to keep up. Mud, her third album, goes the other way. She made it with her best friends, longtime collaborator Jared Solomon along with Jack DeMeo, Jamie McLaughlin and Gigi Grombacher, all playing together in one room. The question is whether a stripped-back Remi Wolf hits the same. She does, because the two things that make her special are still front and center: her pen and her voice.

The album came after years of nonstop touring and recording. Wolf took a step back and headed up to Big Bear with that crew, where they made family dinners, passed microphones around the kitchen and wrote songs as they came. She calls them her “family band,” and you can hear it. They kept it going at Electric Lady Studios in New York and finished in Joshua Tree, caring more about feel than perfection. Wolf even plays drums on a lot of it.

Right away, these songs feel more accessible than anything she’s done, with structures closer to traditional pop. “Bottle,” the second single, opens the album with Wolf stuck in a loop, going off and on again and falling asleep in front of the TV, and she sounds fantastic. “Champagne” is the catchiest thing here, even though it’s about always expecting to get left out in the rain and wanting to be gulped down like the cheap stuff anyway.

Then comes “Twiggy,” the first single, and this is where I have to talk about her pen. Her lyrics are always specific and visual. She describes the crease beside someone’s eye and a heart-shaped birthmark on their nose, then compares headlights to a shark bite. Who else writes like that? The bridge goes so hard. “Burn Me Blue” has a cute, sunny intro and finds her done with playing it cool.

“Jamie” starts with her talking over the music about being at a lake and picking hydrangeas, then turns to a guy from her past. By the end she is wailing. Let’s not forget she has a Janis Joplin-like powerhouse of a voice. “Covered In Mud” brings more of a beat and a darker tone, and I love the bassline. It’s pop that also feels like country.

I was so excited to see John Mayer on “Moon So High,” because I had a feeling he and Remi would be killer in the studio together. They are. It opens like a Kurt Vile track, and the title is about someone setting the bar too high. Mayer’s verse is lovely with her harmonies behind him, and his signature guitar soloing at the end is perfect.

“I Won’t Cry,” the third single, is probably the most emotional moment on the album, and people are already connecting with it. It builds until she’s belting, asking an ex why they don’t want her back. Wolf said it took three hours to write and record on one of the first trips to Big Bear, and that friends would be crying by the end of the demo. She called it “kind of pathetic in a way that I really love,” and I get it.

“Wine Drunk” brings the fun back. It starts with a banjo and some “ho hey” style shouts, and she sings about being a West Coast girl in an East Coast city. The rhymes are ridiculous in the best way, and I can already see people making videos to the chorus when they are, in fact, wine drunk.

“Guess,” co-written with Greg Kurstin, is fingerpicked and a bit sadder, almost like something from Noah Kahan, and she flexes her vocals on it. “Yellow Rose” closes things with a slow drumbeat up front and a start that reminded me of Mac DeMarco. It lands on the idea that loving someone is the hard part and staying is the easy one.

Wolf wrote on Instagram that she made an album about all the things that hurt her, and that making it was somehow one of the happiest experiences of her life. She called it a “strange and beautiful contradiction,” and you can hear both halves. These are sad songs played by people having a great time.

She has also said she started Mud feeling filthy and finished it clean and clear. It’s the sound of someone who got it all out and feels better for it.

Mud is out now. Additionally, Wolf just announced a headlining tour in 2027 with dates across North America. Check out the full list of dates HERE.