SPILL NEWS: CHARLOTTE CORNFIELD’S NEW LP ‘HURTS LIKE HELL’ OUT MARCH 27 VIA NEXT DOOR RECORDS/MERGE RECORDS | TITLE TRACK OUT NOW

CHARLOTTE CORNFIELD’S NEW LP HURTS LIKE HELL OUT MARCH 27 | TITLE TRACK OUT NOW

NEXT DOOR RECORDS/MERGE RECORDS

Charlotte Cornfield announces her new album, Hurts Like Hell, out March 27, 2026 via Next Door Records (Canada) and Merge Records (World Wide), and shares the video for the title track. Cornfield’s sixth album is the first she’s recorded since the birth of her daughter in 2023, an inflection point for her as a person and an artist. The album’s recurrent themes of personal growth and renewal, of love’s perseverance through difficulty and shame and awkwardness, are rooted there. Hurts Like Hell is the most open-hearted, full-voiced album of her career and also the first articulation of her future, whatever uncertainty and love it may bring.

These themes are apparent on the lead single, “Hurts Like Hell”. Alongside Buck Meek’s backing vocals, the band swells to embrace Cornfield’s idiosyncratic flow as if to cradle her protagonist’s heart from self-doubt and shyness. Cornfield excels in the telling of these stories, in her attention to character and detail—“Hurts Like Hell” is no exception, but it started as an experiment in writing from a character’s perspective and not her own. That the song is so vulnerable, so lived-in, is a matter of trust between Cornfield and her bandmates, in each other and of their gut. Their sound lands somewhere between Nashville Skyline and Harvest; a warm, richly-textured response to her bruised-but-seeking call.

“This song is about someone getting over deep insecurities and inhibitions and putting themselves out there,” Cornfield explains. “These two characters in the song have clearly experienced a lot of pain and are pushing themselves to move past it and connect with one another. It’s a shy people love story. The pedal steel/full band/country-tinged approach felt fitting for this one, and Buck’s backing vocals really sent it.”

The accompanying warm and irreverent video was written and directed by friend and fan Scott Jacobson (Bob’s Burgers, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart) and stars James Urbaniak (Henry Fool, American Splendour, The Venture Bros.) and Cornfield as sparring neighbors who resolve their differences through choreographed dance.

MORE ABOUT CHARLOTTE CORNFIELD + HURTS LIKE HELL

Cornfield’s change in perspective is evident not only in her approach to the lyric—which now gives voice to characters and themes beyond her own headspace—but in how she approached recording. Hurts Like Hell is her most collaborative effort to date. Decamping to Philip Weinrobe’s (Adrianne Lenker, Lonnie Holley, Billie Marten) Sugar Mountain studio in January 2025, Cornfield was joined by a full backing band, including Palehound’s El Kempner (guitar/vocals), Lake Street Dive’s Bridget Kearney (bass/vocals), Adam Brisbin (guitar/pedal steel), and Sean Mullins (drums), with key contributions by Núria Graham (piano), and Daniel Pencer (saxophone). Cornfield and Weinrobe then recruited Feist, Buck Meek, Christian Lee Hutson and Maia Friedman to sing on the album. “Every musician involved was a dream collaborator,” Cornfield says.

Weinrobe not only produced, recorded, and mixed Hurts Like Hell, but served as a sounding board for Cornfield while she was workshopping songs, a huge shift for a singer-songwriter whose working relationships with producers typically began on day one of recording. Cornfield and her band recorded together in the room, with live vocals, minimal overdubs, and no headphones, working organically and following their instincts.

Cornfield arrived at Hurts Like Hell bearing both scars from her past and hope for the future. Standing outside of herself and taking stock of what she wanted her music to be in the wake of childbirth, she was brave enough to ask for space, for time, and for help from places and people familiar and unexpected—a group chat, songwriters she was fans of but wasn’t acquainted with, friends whose long-forgotten song leant her the chorus for a new one. Every “yes,” every voice memo, every shared file, every open door leading to this moment in her career. Call that moment what you will—an expansion, a rebirth, a breakthrough—Hurts Like Hell is big enough to meet it.

Kearney, Kempner, Evan Cartwright (Cola), and Nick Levine (Jodi, Great Grandpa) will join Cornfield on a Spring tour with dates in New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles

Tour Dates

Tue. March 31 – Brooklyn, NY @ Public Records
Thu. April – 2 – Chicago, IL @ Schubas
Sat. April 4 – Los Angeles, CA @ Scribble
Thu. April 9 – Toronto, CA @ Lula Lounge

Artist Links

Background Photo Credit: Colin Medley