Melbourne artist Grace Cummings has announced her fourth studio album, Bloodhorse!, with the first track from the record, My God, introducing themes of control, fear and modern disconnection ahead of the album’s August release.
by Paul Cashmere
Grace Cummings has announced her fourth studio album,
Bloodhorse!, set for release on August 14 through Virgin Music Group, alongside the unveiling of its first single, My God. The Melbourne singer-songwriter has paired the release with a video directed by Ben Portnoy, presenting the first detailed look at a project that expands on the sonic and thematic territory introduced on 2024’s Ramona.
The announcement arrives during a period of increasing international visibility for Cummings, whose profile broadened after extensive touring and critical recognition for her previous work. For audiences tracking Australian artists with growing overseas traction, the new album signals another stage in the development of a musician whose recordings have steadily moved beyond traditional folk structures into more experimental territory.
While Refuge Cove and Storm Queen established Cummings as a songwriter drawing from folk, blues and classic singer-songwriter traditions, Bloodhorse! appears to position itself in more unsettled territory. Recorded in a concentrated two-week period with producer Jonathan Wilson at his Topanga Canyon studio in California, the sessions continued a creative partnership first developed for Ramona.
The lead single My God introduces several of the record’s recurring themes, including obsession, manipulation, mythology and identity. The song centres around piano and Cummings’ distinctive vocal delivery, although the circumstances of its recording added an additional dimension. Cummings recorded the track while suffering from pneumonia.
Discussing the song, she explained that the track examines destructive emotional cycles and the increasingly unavoidable pull of digital life.
“Lyrically, this song is about hatred, jealousy, rage. The God here is the dark forces that are wrapping around us, that we scroll through, the toxic energy that binds us together in this modern world, and the fear we feed it every day,” Cummings said.
She added: “‘My God’ describes a false God I wish I wasn’t subscribed to, but am. I don’t want to talk about phones or whatever, but that God lives in there. It’s not what I believe in, but we all subscribe and are hooked to it. And I use the word ‘God’ in my music because it’s the biggest word there is. I don’t know what it means, but I feel it in a lot of things.”
The subject matter reflects themes that have surfaced in Cummings’ work before. Questions around faith, larger forces and the search for meaning have appeared throughout her catalogue, including Storm Queen, which was written during the COVID period and explored ideas surrounding destruction and spirituality.
Cummings’ path into music also developed outside traditional routes. Before becoming recognised as a solo performer, she began as a drummer before teaching herself guitar. Her debut album Refuge Cove arrived through Melbourne’s Flightless label in 2019 after label founder Eric Moore attended one of her performances. Early support slots with artists including Weyes Blood, Evan Dando and J Mascis helped establish her live reputation.
Subsequent releases broadened her audience. Storm Queen arrived in 2022, followed by Ramona in 2024, a record that earned a place on the Australian Music Prize shortlist and attracted APRA recognition through later songwriting nominations. Ramona also marked the beginning of her collaboration with Wilson, whose production work with artists including Angel Olsen informed the more expansive sound heard on that album.
Beyond music, Cummings has also maintained a connection to theatre. Having trained in drama, she has appeared in Australian stage productions including Prehistoric and the Melbourne Theatre Company production of Berlin.
For Australian artists, sustained movement from independent local recognition to international touring remains difficult territory. Cummings’ trajectory over recent years has reflected a wider pattern where artists increasingly build audiences through live performance and overseas exposure rather than relying solely on domestic radio support. Touring alongside acts including King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, My Morning Jacket and Father John Misty has also placed her music in front of audiences outside her traditional folk base.
The release of Bloodhorse! now becomes the next marker in that progression. With My God offering the first indication of the album’s direction, the coming months will reveal whether Cummings’ move into darker and more experimental spaces further expands an audience that has steadily grown with each release.
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