Eric Church is officially working on new music. On Friday at midnight, he surprise-released the first taste with “Darkest Hour,” a majestic pledge of devotion to help loved ones in need. In this case, the North Carolina native means that literally. According to a release, Church has signed over all royalties of the song, in perpetuity, to his home state in light of the deadly, devastating flooding in Western North Carolina.
“I’ve been in the studio for a while, trying some different things and exploring creativity. I had this song that I’d written, and the line that struck me in light of the recent devastation was ‘I’ll come running,’ because there are a lot of people out there right now who are in their darkest hour and they need people to come running,” he said in a statement. “We were going to wait to release music until next year, but it just didn’t feel right to wait with this song. Sometimes you give songs their moment and sometimes they find their own moment.”
As a piece of music, “Darkest Hour” announces a new era for Church. It features strings, a choir, and production by longtime collaborator Jay Joyce that will blow listeners’ minds. The song evokes the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Band, and the symphonic compositions of Queen or, more recently, the Verve. It is rock opera from the Seventies, crossed with Church’s rough-hewn mountain country, all built on the skeleton of his talked-about Stagecoach headlining set.
Most notably, it features Church singing in the falsetto that he memorably deployed on “Chattanooga Lucy,” from 2015’s Mr. Misunderstood. “Baby don’t give up,” he sings in “Darkest Hour,” his first solo release since 2021’s Heart & Soul, “I’ll do everything in my power/To take even a minute off your darkest hour.”
“‘Darkest Hour’ is a song dedicated to the unsung heroes, the people who show up when the world’s falling apart. This is for the folks who show up in the hardest times, offering a hand when it’s most needed, and standing tall when others can’t. Even in your darkest hour, they come running. When the night’s at its blackest, this is for those who are holding the light, guiding the lost and pulling us through,” Church said.
“The message of the song specifically in this time is about Hurricane Helene and the people that need help, but in a broader view, it’s about any challenging times that we have in our life, which we’ll all have,” he continued. “And it’s always important to know that in your darkest hour, there are people that will come running, there are people that will help.”