(OSV News) — A surprise new album from The Hillbilly Thomists — a band of Dominican friars whose music regularly hits the Billboard bluegrass charts — invites listeners to encounter God in a special way.
“We want people who hear it to be struck by the reality of God, the truth of His love for them, and the possibility of hope no matter what situation in life you find,” Father Jonah Teller, a band member and pastor at the Church of St. Joseph in Greenwich Village in New York City, told OSV News. “Also for people to be struck by just the delight of living in God’s creation — all the different ways that you can encounter the glory of God in the world.”
The Hillbilly Thomists released their sixth album, “Strange Land,” on streaming platforms July 27 while on tour across the United States. The album of 10 songs continues the band’s embrace of the Roots Americana genre while introducing new sounds with an electric guitar and full drum kit. It includes everything from “Good Old Elvis,” a song that explores death in light of eternal life, to “The Providence Waltz,” a tune about dancing with God.
The Dominican friars dropped their album during their 10-city tour, “Strange Land Tour 2026.” The tour opened in Providence, Rhode Island, July 24 before visiting nine other cities: New York City; Bear, Delaware; Baltimore; Washington; Asheville, North Carolina; Greenville, South Carolina; Macon, Georgia; Birmingham, Alabama; and Nashville, Tennessee.
Four of the eight band members spoke with OSV News about their new album while on the road from Birmingham to Nashville for their final performance Aug. 8, the feast of St. Dominic.
A side gig for friars
The Hillbilly Thomists recorded “Strange Land” last summer. Today, listeners can tune in on streaming platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube, SoundCloud, Pandora and iHeartRadio. In the coming weeks, CDs and vinyl records will also be available for purchase.
“Every year during the summer — late July, early August — we either record or tour on an alternating basis,” said Father Justin Bolger, a band member and chaplain of the Catholic community at Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design.
He called the music a side gig for the band members who serve as chaplains, pastors, teachers, or presidents of institutions across the country and even internationally.
A constellation of themes
The Hillbilly Thomists “explore a constellation of themes” with their music, Father Bolger said, adding that these are related to traditional Americana music. He listed themes of the road, of pilgrimage and of the virtue of hope.
“These themes repeat again on this album, but we explore them … from different angles each time,” he said.
Father Austin Litke, a founding member of the band and professor of theology at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, also known as the Angelicum, said that fans are already enjoying the new music.
“There have been handfuls of people who — even though it’s only been out for days — have already memorized the lyrics or are singing them back to us,” he said.
One of the songs they have noticed people like is “Good Old Elvis,” which Father Bolger described as “an adventure in the Christian life in a three-minute song.”
“We explore the theme of death, which we all often do in light of our hope in the next life and in our salvation through Christ,” he said. “We explore that through Elvis.”
A swirl of new songs
He also highlighted a second song called, “Garrigou,” about French Dominican Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, a 20th-century Thomist theologian.
Father Thomas Joseph White, a founding band member and rector of the Angelicum, also described several songs, beginning with “Stormy Weather.” He called it “a beautiful, haunting song about being stuck on I-95 and thinking about the divine providence, and a little homage to the New Jersey Turnpike.”
“The Providence Waltz,” which refers to Providence, Rhode Island, and divine providence, is “sort of about dancing with God in a waltz where we’re trying to catch up with God and understand what God’s doing in our lives,” Father White said.
He went on to call “Knockin’ the Dead (Alive)” a “blues song about priests being envisaged as boxers and fishermen who are smacking people with sacraments to bring them from death to life.”
Another song, “Gloria,” tells the story of a woman who is homeless in New York City.
“It’s kind of about her difficulty to find the courage to pray because of her addiction and about the celebration of God’s mercy and grace who comes to inspire us to pray — or inspires others to pray for us when we cannot pray well for ourselves,” Father White said. “It’s a sort of anthem of hope for people with addiction and who suffer homelessness.”
Strangers in a strange land
“Strange Land,” the album’s title song, points to a broader theme.
“We write a lot of music for people on the way, coming from somewhere, going somewhere,” he said. “It’s about being on a journey toward Christ and our homeland with God, so I think it just felt like a good song — theme song — for the album.”
The Dominican friars recognize that their band is also on a kind of journey. Father Litke said that The Hillbilly Thomists and the music that they play “has grown up out of our fraternal life.”
“What’s really beautiful about that is, the fact that we are priests and preachers and Dominican friars is going to manifest itself in whatever we do, even in our recreation, even in this kind of side gig that we have of doing music,” he said. “We’re really thrilled that people receive something from that.”
Katie Yoder is an OSV News correspondent. She writes from Maryland.
