Madison Cunningham’s new album Ace plays with contradictions. Like the card it’s named after, it can mean everything or nothing, the highest or lowest. Heartbreak carries that same weight, and on her her new album, Cunningham dives headlong into its shifting meanings. The result is her most vulnerable and arresting collection yet, a record about betrayal, self-discovery, and the stubborn hope of falling in love again.

Ace arrives after Revealer, the Grammy-winning album that showed Cunningham as both a sharp songwriter and a sly observer of life around her. That record made her a favorite among critics and peers, with fans ranging from John Mayer to Robin Pecknold. But Ace demanded more. It wasn’t about sketches or observations. It was about her own heartbreak, her own reckoning. After a stretch of writer’s block and months of circling the right words, everything suddenly clicked in August of 2024. She wrote almost the entire album that month. “I shattered and became a new shape,” she says.

Aces unfolds as a direct address, songs that speak like love letters and goodbyes. Cunningham wanted emotions first, unfiltered but still hers alone. Tracks like “My Full Name” capture that duality. What started as a song for someone new became a private, enigmatic world of its own, where she sings of wildflowers, Berlin, and a plane crash, all laid bare against sparse piano and subtle woodwinds. Her guitar is still present, but here the piano steps to the front. Songs like “Shatter Into Form” and “Shore” glow with her gentle touch, the melodies feeling like summer evenings or windows opening on a moving train.

Cunningham’s evolution as a musician is evident. Known first as a guitarist with collaborations alongside Andrew Bird, Lucy Dacus, Mumford & Sons, and others, she pushes into new terrain on Ace. Produced with Robbie Lackritz, the record balances her intimate piano-driven writing with warm, ensemble textures. Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold joins her on “Wake,” their voices braiding together over intricate fingerpicking and earthy rhythms. Lackritz calls Cunningham “a force of nature” and describes the sessions as bursts of energy where entire songs were born in a single day.

By the time Ace closes with “Best of Us,” Cunningham reaches her summit. “The kingdom has fallen, two bedroom apartment, holding up the broken arm,” she sings, finding poetry in collapse and resilience. It is her most personal and daring album, one that feels alive, lush, and wholly her own. Madison Cunningham wanted Ace to feel like a mountain. She built it, climbed it, and at the peak, she’s never sounded stronger.