Colter Wall, the no-nonsense rancher who hangs his hat in southwestern Saskatchewan, is back in the spotlight with Memories and Empties, his fifth studio album and first since the 2023 ode to the Canadian West, Little Songs. His brand-new LP, by comparison, is more likely to evoke the two-stepping, toe-tapping memories of Merle Haggard and The Strangers and their contemporaries.

“I wanted to make a straight ahead country album,” Wall says of Memories and Empties. “There’s some cowboy vernacular and western-isms that crept their way into a few of these songs, but mostly, I was pointed towards more country themes. And the sound is representative of that.”

The ten-track Memories and Empties — via La Honda Records and RCA Records — was recorded at the venerable RCA Studio A, with Wall’s long-time co-producer Patrick Lyons behind the console and plenty of strings. Wall wrote nine of the songs on the record, with a cover of Ian Tyson’s “Summer Wages” rounding out the project. Guests Noeline Hofmann and Nikki Lane add their voices to the project with harmonies that complement Wall’s timeless baritone vocals. The stories told in song on Memories and Empties are full of characters in love, working to the bone, losing time, and humble before their creator.

The album’s first single, “1800 Miles” listens like a line of demarcation between Wall and Nashville. The lyric “If I ever was for sale, I never sold,” is a sharp reminder of Wall’s commitment to doing things his own way.  "We don't got these kinds of cliques where I was grown. It's 1800 miles from Music Row," he sings. In other words, Saskatchewan, Canada, his birthplace, is home. “I’ll always feel that my music is a representation of where I’m from as much as anything. 

“It’s just me poking a little fun at myself as well as at Nashville and the ‘country music industry,’” Wall says. “It’s saying what I do is pretty meat and potatoes and no frills. It’s simple really, but it’s honest to who I am, and I take pride in that.” 

The stories Wall has penned unfold naturally from here, and on the album’s title track, he is lost and lured to a path that "only leads to barstool." He hopes the Lord will love common measures on "4/4 Time" and he laments wilder times and how "It's Getting So (That a Man Can't Go into Town Just to Have Himself a Drink" later on in the album. He speaks to love and survives tough times on "Like the Hills," while embracing the constant change in "By the Hour."

Throughout the record, Wall’s vocals interplay with a swinging pedal steel and classic-country bass notes as he sings relational stories which play out in rural communities. “This record is really about relationships, I guess,” he surmises. “That’s the common thread through all these songs. Whether it be a man’s relationship with a woman, with himself, his relationship with the land, with alcohol, with the past and the future, or with God.”

All the while, a fresh production approach results in Wall’s modern twist on the legacy that the late Merle Haggard left. “I’ve always said that The Strangers were the best country backing band of all time,” he explains. “In my opinion, they are anyways, so that was the guiding light for a lot of what we did in the studio. We approached this record pretty casually, I’d say. Myself and Pat Lyons co-produced it, and we cut damn near the whole thing live off the floor. That was a cool throw back, cutting it live in that room.”

When it came time to record Ian Tyson’s “Summer Wages,” a staple of the band’s liveset, Wall turned to Noeline Hofmann, a fellow Canadian and labelmate on La Honda Records, whose own career breakthrough in 2024 and 2025 was spurred by a long stretch on the road when she opened for Wall.

“When we started on this record, we were just fresh off doing a run of shows with Noeline,” he says. “We were doing ‘Summer Wages’ as the encore and she was nice enough to come out and sing harmonies to close out those shows. Kinda a nice little Western Canadian moment.”

In support of the new record, Wall is touring western Canada, Texas and the Southwest, with highlight shows during National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas, NV, Austin's iconic ACL Live at Moody Theater, and the Will Rogers Coliseum in Fort Worth's historic Stockyards. Special guests include Kade Hoffman and Hayden Redwine. Memories and Empties was recorded as a live band record. What better way to celebrate its release than with live shows from the band that brought the sound of country music back to RCA Studio A.