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Jun 03, 2026 By Caleb Campbell

Harrisonburg, Virginia-based indie alt country outfit Dogwood Tales traces plaintive stories with an unmistakable sense of place. Their music is indelibly shaped by the contours of life in the Shenandoah Valley, where childhood friends Kyle Grim and Ben Ryan grew up and started the band, alongside drummer Jake Golibart and bassist Danny Gibney. The band debuted with their 2018 album, Too Hard to Tell, followed by their 2020 sophomore album, Closest Thing to Heaven, and a handful of EPs over the subsequent years.

Fans last heard from the band earlier this year with Destination Heaven, their collaborative album release with Euphoria Again, the solo project of singer/songwriter and Knifeplay guitarist John Klein. Later this summer, the band are keeping that momentum up while getting back to basics with another new album, Every Star in Rockingham County. The full album is due out on August 28th via Born Losers Records, and today the band are accompanying the album announcement with its lead single, “McMemories,” premiering early with Under the Radar.

“McMemories” occupies the same intersection of bleary alt country and hangdog indie rock as MJ Lenderman or Wild Pink. If you like your sunswept small town tales delivered with layers of blown-out distortion or your winding pedal steel tempered with road-worn grit, you’ll find a lot to love with Dogwood Tales’ latest effort. The band ping-pongs between hazy contrasts, leaning into their meandering lo-fi country melodies before pivoting into a volcanic rock jam in the latter half of the track. Similarly, their lyrics tour through distant childhood memories, zooming in on details like cutting class for McDonald’s Coke, teenage makeouts, and tiny keepsakes. That intimacy turns dreamy and widescreen with the chorus, spiraling into fantasy as the guitars churn out gnarled hooks: “I had a dream / That you were a light beam / Coming down through / The darkest night I had ever seen.”

The band says of the track, “‘McMemories’ came from a reflection on a relationship in my life that has felt informative to all relationships I’ve experienced since; one that feels like the center of all my loose ends, always in my peripheral. We started playing this song live a few years ago, and it felt like a missing piece that we had been looking for as a band, kind of mirroring how the lyrics felt for me personally. This song was a realization that a distant memory can be the beacon of light that brings all the scattered pieces together, and it takes remembering to see the path ahead with more certainty.”

Check out the song and video below. Every Star in Rockingham County is due out on August 28th via Born Losers Records.