Broken Homes & Gardens [LP], Michael Hurley, Vinyl

Broken Homes and Gardens, the final studio album from Michael Hurley, was completed in March 2025 just before Hurley left for his final shows in Asheville and Knoxville. He had been working on these 11 tracks for the past three years at The Rope Room studio in Astoria, Oregon with the same crew as his 2021 LP The Time of the Foxgloves (Kati Claborn and Luke Ydstei of The Hackles and engineer Brian Bovenizer). As was common with Hurley LP's: there are re-workings of older compositions ("Indian Chiefs and Hula Girls", "Abomidable Snowman") alongside new songs ("Fava", "The Monkey") making for a brilliant final collection, and capping off one of the most consequential bodies of work of any American songwriter.