Lizzie No - Outlaws' Almanac

Keep queer country community strong! Sign up and subscribe today for a free zine and t-shirt as part of our 600/500 Challenge!

I live in West Virginia, a deep red state. This year's Martin Luther King Jr. Day march felt... different. It felt as though we were screaming inside a burning house with only a cup of water trembling in our tired hands. During the march through downtown Lewisburg, we sang "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around," a civil rights-era anthem that's continued to be a blood-soaked rallying cry. Musician and singer-songwriter Brandi Waller-Pace offers up her piercing take on Outlaws' Almanac, a compilation record helmed by Americana favorite Lizzie No.

Just this week, police killed a Black one-year-old infant named Kohen Wiley after his parents were accused of stealing diapers. Police reports claim the child's mother drove their car towards a police officer, but video evidence contradicts that statement. Because we know cops have never lied in the history of forever. An album like Outlaws' Almanac, arriving on Juneteenth feels as important as ever, not only for Waller-Pace's performance but the lineup of artists who've come together for one common cause: to chip away at the white supremacist system with their art.

Singer-songwriter and banjo player Kaia Kater cracks open the record with "I Want to Hear Somebody Pray," a traditional Caribbean folk tune pleading for compassion-rooted faith. Kater's banjo strumming is stormy and weathered, but its earnestness sets the stage for the flurry of emotions present on the record. "Let the television burn, babe," sings Kasey Anderson in "The Dangerous Ones," setting media's alt-right propaganda ablaze. "There's a riot in the street. They said the wolf was at the front door. He was lying at their feet."

"Blood hits the tongue," Anderson later sings, harmonica fanning the flames. It's that grit, caught in the back of the throat, that makes real change happen. "Let the motherfucker burn!"

Performer A.J. Haynes, of the Seratones, cuts deep with "Slowly," a deep rumination on life and death itself. A backdrop of the night, complete with chirping crickets, circles around like a million marbles rolling around the sky. It's stunningly calming, but don't mistake it for complacency. Haynes drives her emotions into the song's backbone.

Lizzie No's "Bear Creek" prickles in both the harp arrangement and the lyrics. "How long will I love my enemies? Until I'm right back to where I started, crying I can't breathe," she laments, her heart throbbing through her chest. "But now, my heart is following the drum, beating louder, braver than anything I have ever done." Later, "The One I Love and The Freedom Road" serves as both a celebration of Black queer love and a lamentation for the ongoing trudge to the mountaintop.

Outlaws' Almanac features a bevy of talented players, singers, and songwriters, including Nathan Evans Fox, Olivia Ellen Lloyd, Kapali Long, Wille Greene, and Kimaya Digs. The record is also a response to the upcoming 250th anniversary of the U.S., and serves as an apt reminder that "the true story of America started long before 1776, with European colonization, land theft, genocide, and slavery," reads a statement on the album. "Throughout it all: rebellion. Native rebellion, African rebellion, Caribbean rebellion. The American canon, as it exists, tells the story of white landowners and their dreams, often in opposition to the land and its original stewards."

From "Take This Hammer," a prison work song first sung by Lead Belly in 1944 and now performed by Tray Wellington, to "Vigil of Medicaid," a belting cry over governmental stripping of necessary lifelines, brimming with Kapali Long's soul-digging rasp, Outlaws' Almanac is the single most important album of 2026.

Art can truly change the world, and if we genuinely listen to Black voices, things might eventually get better.

You can find Outlaws' Almanac on Bandcamp