Michael McDermott returns with Flowers From The Graveyard, an 11-song cycle that finds the veteran Chicago singer-songwriter wrestling with survival, acceptance, anger and the small flashes of grace that make the struggle worthwhile. Released on his own Pauper Sky Records, the album moves between full-throated rock and roll and quieter moments of reflection, with McDermott's storytelling once again planted firmly at the center.

For more than three decades, McDermott has occupied his own corner of American music. His 1991 debut, 620 W. Surf, introduced a songwriter raised on Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Van Morrison and the Who, and began a career that has rarely followed an easy or predictable path. Through records including Last Chance Lounge, Willow Springs, What in the World, St. Paul's Boulevard and 2024's Lighthouse On The Shore / East Jesus, McDermott has turned plenty of that journey into songs.

That history gives Flowers From The Graveyard much of its weight. These are songs written by someone who has accumulated enough miles to understand that answers don't always arrive and some battles simply have to be carried. But there's an unmistakable current of hope running through the record, even when McDermott is staring down disappointment, uncertainty or the state of the world around him.

The titles alone tell part of the story. "The Best We Get," "Always A Ways Away" and "Nobody" open the album before McDermott moves through "But For The Little Moments," "Old Feelings" and the appropriately named "The Struggle Makes You Stronger." There's also room for characters and places in "Johnny Sparrow And The Sunset Girl" and "The Lords Of Lincoln Park," continuing McDermott's long tradition of finding larger truths in individual lives and familiar streets.

By the time the record reaches "The Future," the title track and closing "Ain't Life Beautiful," its emotional arc comes into focus. McDermott isn't pretending the scars disappear or that every story ends neatly. He's looking at what remains after everything else has been stripped away and finding reasons to keep moving.

There's something fitting about calling the album Flowers From The Graveyard. McDermott has spent much of his career writing about people who get knocked down, wander off course and somehow manage to rise again. Here, even the graveyard can produce something beautiful.

Even after 35 years of making records, Michael McDermott still sounds like a songwriter with something at stake. Flowers From The Graveyard turns that persistence into its own kind of celebration, raising a fist for the outsiders, survivors and anyone who's learned that sometimes the best things grow in the most unlikely places.