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Photo by Tyler Krippaehne

Some albums get written on purpose, but I’d argue that the good ones sometimes just happen to you. That’s more or less the story behind Sideways, the second album from Nashville’s Josh Gilligan, that’s due out August 28th via Congrats Records. The label, Congrats, is run by his longtime collaborator Zac Farro, who also co-produced this record. Originally, Josh didn’t even set out to make this record, he’d just come off the road chasing a way to hold onto the feeling of touring and taking care of people he loved. 

Once he returned, he and Zac Farro started meeting a couple times a week in a warehouse studio, unwinding most evenings over pool at Wilburn Street Tavern in Nashville, and soon enough they realized the songs that started accumulating between them were an album. There wasn’t a plan or anything, it was just lightning striking in the right place, at the right time. 

The title track is easygoing, a little wistful, and in love with the moments that are too small to remember on purpose but too important to ever forget. It’s those nights with your best friend, where you don’t do anything important or groundbreaking, but they feel like home and you wouldn’t trade them for the world. The track is paired with a visualizer built from home videos shot by Farro, AJ Gibboney, and Gilligan himself, which just goes all too well with the album’s heart. This truly is, a record that is like finding footage in your attic that nobody thought to save, they just put it in storage. 

Across the ten songs in the tracklisting, the sound stays true to its core and the songs practice restraint, as if they’re letting the home videos come to life in your mind. Think about when you watch home videos from when you were younger, you don’t need Josh to illustrate what it was like, the memory is evocative enough to bring you back to a place you used to be. Josh doesn’t want to showboat, he just wants to show you his memories. It’s a warmth that stands all on its own, and doesn’t need embellishment to be beautiful. 

This sort of restraint, showcased in loose and unhurried tracks that assemble themselves with understated drums and bass, guitars that feel sunlit rather than sharp, and melodies that swing you back and forth rather than push any harder than they need to is just what makes this album beautiful. The end product calls comparisons to Paul McCartney at the height of his solo career without ever chasing down or seeking that comparison directly. 

Sideways follows Josh Gilligan’s 2025 debut Party of One, but it isn’t a sequel, don’t get that mistaken. It seeks to be known as a correction, it’s stripped down and unbothered and plays like Josh hasn’t returned to an earlier version of himself but has settled into the one he’s always been headed towards. After spending a decade touring with bands, making solo records, and living in Nashville’s music scene, it sounds a whole lot like relief as the culmination of a storied history of an artist who cares. 

Gilligan’s been playing these songs into the world gradually, he’s recently opened for Hamilton Leithauser at Nashville’s Basement East and he’s set to support Liam Kazar at Third Man Records’ Blue Room in late September, with more dates expected soon. This summer brings a bigger stage: an arena run alongside Medium Build, opening for Mumford & Sons, including three nights at Madison Square Garden. 

Listen to Sideways below: