Her fond wish is to buy a pair of roller skates to escape her dreary, daily routines. The opener, “Figure 8’s” marks a first for Nace, writing from the female perspective in a tune about a single mother, struggling to get by. The core band is Jon Latham (guitar), Todd Bolden (bass), Erin Nelson (drums), Megan Palmer (fiddle), John Henry Trinko (keys and accordion), Owen Beverly (organ), and John Calvin Abney (accordion and bell).

The album was produced by Steven Cooper, who also played guitar and it was mixed by Nace’s brother, Justin. Like the best of songwriters, his are story songs. Some of it reminisces but most of it is eminently relatable. So, the album is about relationships and what it means to be human on a daily basis. He had just turned 40 and was grappling with the issues of adulthood, trying to assess his identity, musical and otherwise.

He, like most of us, became very introspective during that period. This recent batch of songs were all recorded during the pandemic and although history may label this as Nace’s “pandemic record,” only one of the ten songs directly addresses the bleak emotions surrounding that time. Canadian singer-songwriter Nick Nace, who has been based in Nashville, in recent years, returns with his fourth solo album, The Harder Stuff, his follow-up to 2019’s Wrestling with the Mystery, which we covered on these pages.

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