For Luke Grimes, the line between fiction and real life has always been a little blurry, like a long desert road heading into the sun. Known to many as Kayce Dutton on Yellowstone, Grimes has spent years embodying a certain rugged mythology. But on Red Bird, his second full-length album, he steps out of the script and into something far more personal.

Produced by Dave Cobb, the record trades cinematic drama for something quieter but no less cutting. If his 2024 self-titled debut introduced Grimes as a serious musician, Red Bird feels like the moment he stops introducing himself altogether, because you already know. Tracks like “High Rise Jeans” and “Come Home” carry a genuine warmth, while “Love You Now” and “Without You” drift into more fragile territory, where every lyric feels like it’s balancing on a fault line. Elsewhere, “Hummingbird” and “A Little More Time” are even more reflective, unspooling with the kind of patience that suggests Grimes isn’t in a hurry to prove anything. Even the rowdier moments, like “Drink Drink Drink,” feels like a confession wrapped in rebellion.

The timing of Red Bird is no coincidence; the album arrives alongside Grimes’ starring role in Marshals. But music was there long before the cameras. Raised in Ohio as the son of a Pentecostal pastor, Grimes learned rhythm behind a drum kit at church camp before picking up guitar and piano. He later found his footing in a Los Angeles country band, though Hollywood ultimately pulled him into its orbit, with roles in films like American Sniper and The Magnificent Seven. Still, the songs never left him, following him everywhere like unfinished thoughts.

You can hear those roots throughout Red Bird. There are shades of Cash, Haggard, and Willie in the album’s DNA, alongside the modern introspection of Colter Wall and Ruston Kelly. There’s even a ghostly trace of Townes Van Zandt in the way Grimes lets silence do as much work as the words. Grimes never overplays his hand though, he lets the songs do their thing, offering us honesty without the theatrics.