Yola became a low-key sensation in the country world with her Dan Auerbach-produced debut album Walk Through Fire, her association with the Highwomen, and other impressive turns on record and on stage. Now the Nashville-based British singer is returning with her second LP, Stand For Myself. Again produced by Auerbach, it finds Yola venturing out from country into “symphonic soul and classic pop,” sounds that are readily apparent on the album’s tremendous lead single.

“Diamond Studded Shoes” immediately ingratiates itself with a propulsive rhythm and a guitar groove that puts a bluesy spin on classic pop, but it really takes off when Yola hits the gospel-inflected chorus: “We know it isn’t/ It ain’t gonna turn out right/ We know it isn’t/ That’s why we got to fight!” In a press release, she says the song “explores the false divides created to distract us from those few who are in charge of the majority of the world’s wealth and use the ‘divide and conquer’ tactic to keep it. This song calls on us to unite and turn our focus to those with a stranglehold on humanity.”

She also has this to say about director Kwaku Otchere’s music video: “The video is in part inspired by The Truman Show and is about being trapped in a false construct. It is supposedly perfect, but you’re trapped in a life that wasn’t meant for you. I wanted to convey the feeling that everything you know to be true is not quite working the way it’s supposed to. The island at the end is a paradigm of mental conditioning, we are all trapped on an island of our own thinking, until we change it.”

Watch below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Barely Alive”
02 “Dancing Away In Tears”
03 “Diamond Studded Shoes”
04 “Be My Friend”
05 “Great Divide”
06 “Starlight”
07 “If I Had To Do It All Again”
08 “Now You’re Here”
09 “Whatever You Want”
10 “Break The Bough”
11 “Like A Photograph”
12 “Stand For Myself”

Stand For Myself is out 7/30 on Easy Eye Sound.