In an era where grief is often reduced to Instagram captions and curated vulnerability, Judah & the Lion’s fifth studio album, The Process, dares to dwell in the muck of mourning. Not for spectacle, not even for solace—but for truth. It is a grief record in the truest sense, mapped to the five stages of grief as outlined by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, but lived through the lens of front man Judah Akers’ real-life losses: a marriage collapsed, family members lost to suicide, and a nervous system frayed by trauma. If indie-folk music once promised healing in harmonies, The Process insists healing only comes from naming the wound.
“The anger felt good,” Akers sings with a clenched jaw on the track “Anger,” a line that serves as both admission and warning. The Nashville-based duo holds little back across 24 songs, including interludes that act like breathwork breaks in therapy. The album plays like a group therapy session set to mandolin and synth, capturing the dissociative shock of loss (“F LA”), the spiraling self-blame of heartbreak (“Heartbreak Syndrome”), and the quiet, reluctant surrender of forgiveness (“Leave It Better Than You Found It”). Its emotional register spans the cinematic—surf rock anthems and alt-pop breakdowns—to the deeply intimate, like the lo-fi spoken-word interlude that opens “Bargaining,” layered with ambient recordings that feel like voice memos between therapy sessions.
This is not recovery as a highlight reel. It’s recovery as a ledger: panic attacks, antidepressants, over-drinking, missed birthdays, unreturned texts. And yet, what makes The Process remarkable is not its pain, but its posture toward that pain. There’s a humility in its construction, a willingness to survive the wreckage and study it.
Unlike their more anthemic earlier records (Pep Talks, Folk Hop N’ Roll), which teetered between genre-bending exuberance and folk revivalist glee, The Process pulls inward. This is the band sobering up—in both form and function. Akers and bandmate Brian Macdonald, sons of therapists, consulted with psychologists (including Akers’ aunt and both their mothers) to responsibly scaffold the album around the psychological reality of grief. It’s a rare move in the world of pop music—akin to trauma-informed songwriting—and it shows.
Tracks like “Floating in the Night” and “Self-Inflicted Wounds” meditate not just on heartbreak but on its physiological echoes: insomnia, hypervigilance, and the uneasy aftermath of emotional rupture. On “Starting Over,” Akers offers one of the most quietly devastating lines: “I suppose I’m getting closer… starting over.” It’s not triumphant. It’s just true.
For those in addiction recovery, particularly those with co-occurring grief, The Process lands like a conversation you didn’t know you needed. There are nods to self-medication, yes, but more importantly, to what comes after: the long, daily choosing of life. One could argue that The Process isn’t just about grief; it’s a companion to it. It models emotional regulation without preaching it, inviting the listener to feel without dictating what to feel.
In the album’s closer, “Leave It Better Than You Found It,” the question is no longer how to avoid suffering, but how to live with it and live beyond it. As Akers sings, “I guess that I hope… they say I was alive, and I tried to be kind,” it becomes clear: The Process isn’t just a story of one man’s survival. It’s an invitation—for all of us navigating mental illness, recovery, or simply the brutal beauty of being human—to start over, again.
Judah & the Lion – Floating In The Night (Official Visualizer)
Judah & the Lion – Long Dark Night (Official Video)
PLAY IT AGAIN: Music can instantly transport you to another state of mind and alter your mood in a heartbeat. This section features select songs that represent some part of our journey and serve as sobriety anthems in reminding us to stay the course. These are the ones that have us saying “PLAY IT AGAIN” and always end up on repeat. No decade or genre is off-limits. Happy listening!
What’s your sobriety theme song? If there is a song you think should be on our playlist, we want to hear about it. Send your requests to thesobercurator@gmail.com
Sometimes life gets really shitty. Resources are available. Please use them if you need them.
If you or someone you know is experiencing difficulties surrounding alcoholism, addiction, or mental illness, please reach out and ask for help. People everywhere can and want to help; you just have to know where to look. And continue to look until you find what works for you. Click here for a list of regional and national resources.
