Palmyra’s debut album “Restless” can oftentimes feel like a travelogue of recollected points on a map, crossing a multitude of state lines and entering the city limits of places like Buffalo, Boston, Sedona and Knoxville.
Even in a nod to the band’s established home, Sasha Landon sings on the track “Palm Readers:” “81 back to Richmond / Drive all over Virginia / I hate it, I love it, I don’t think I’ll ever leave.”
Traveling to and from home, living a life of highway exits and onramps, sleeping in a different place every night and making just enough money to keep the transient lifestyle afloat is not an experience wholly unique to Landon and their bandmates Teddy Chipouras and Mānoa Bell. By and large, it is the norm for almost all touring artists. But it is these experiences that come with such a life, the mental and emotional fortitude it challenges, the relationships it both bonds and breaks, and the sense of identity it establishes, that so powerfully channel the narratives throughout the album.
“I think that’s kind of the theme of the record,” says Chipouras. “It’s the past couple years, just living this new life for us on the road and figuring out how to be a good person and improve ourselves and live a healthy life.”
Palmyra is as capable of evoking the modern ruralism of the Avett Brothers, blending beautiful three-part harmonies with organic, Appalachian instrumentation (acoustic guitar, upright bass, mandolin, banjo), as they are channeling the emotive urgency and passion of early-era Bright Eyes, bursting forth with frantic arrangements and voice-cracking lyricism. The trio has successfully manifested the kind of breakout recognition that comes from relentless – and restless – touring and performing.
As difficult as it may seem now, the aptly referenced restlessness of the trio’s lives was actually quite static for time back when Landon, Chipouras, Bell first met. Attending James Madison University, all three had enrolled in a songwriting class offered within the school’s music program. “That class there’d be a new assignment every week,” explains Bell. “One week, for example, you’d have to write a song with no chorus, or something to that effect. And people would complete the assignment, bring it in, and it then became a critique class. Everyone would give their input with the idea of improving your writing. It was a really beautiful experience.”
Chipouras adds that sharing “heart-on-your-sleeve” tunes with a group of people, and them critiquing it, made it a “very vulnerable” experience.
“That said, I think [it] was so informative and transformative for us because it gave each of us and everyone in the class a really helpful vocabulary and lens to look at songwriting through, where you can very critically, kind of reexamine something you’ve written, or something that someone else wrote, and say, ‘This is what I like about this,’ or ‘This is what works about it,’ or ‘This is something that is fat that could be trimmed,’ or ‘This isn’t serving the song.’ That is something that has really stuck with us.”
Unfortunately for Landon, Chipouras and Bell, the tail end of college eventually led to the introductory days of the pandemic. Capitalizing on their growing friendship and mutual reverence for traditional roots-based music, the three left Virginia and settled in Boston, moving in together and continuing their songwriting exercises. By the time lockdown officially ended, Palmyra had left the starting gate with a full head of steam, releasing two EPs, 2022’s “Shenandoah” and 2023’s “Belladonna,” and becoming breakout performers at the 2024 Newport Folk Festival, where the band was able to proudly announce they had been signed to John Prine’s Oh Boy Records.
Palmyra had auditioned for Oh Boy sometime prior, arranging for representatives to see them perform in Nashville. Even when a snowstorm shut down the city, the trio managed to call in enough favors to get a small audience to come support their tryout. “We literally called the venue and asked, ‘Would you be willing to shovel the parking lot and just open it up?’” recalls Bell. “We texted everyone we knew in Nashville. We were like, ‘We know you’re snowed in right now. We could pick you up!’”
Providing “Restless” the proper distribution Palmyra was yearning for, Oh Boy released the record earlier this year and it has become an unanticipated standout among 2025’s indie music records, earning critical endorsements from the likes Stereogum, Uproxx, Paste and No Depression.
Much of the record’s strength comes from the same omnipresent vulnerability that was first coaxed out of them during their songwriting classes. These lowered defenses are perhaps nowhere better exemplified than on the album’s emotional, centerpiece single, “The Shape I’m In,” in which Landon grapples with a bipolar diagnosis and their trans identity.
“I received my bipolar I diagnosis in 2022 at the end of a long year of touring,” explains Landon. “I remember coming home to our house in Floyd at the time and feeling so deeply unsettled in myself and my surroundings, and it took a few months to finally settle on that diagnosis and respective treatment.”
They had to make major adjustments to their touring lifestyle immediately following those doctor’s visits, including abstaining from drinking, prioritizing rest and creating more alone time.
“It was an incredibly tumultuous and introspective time for me, and I think for my bandmates, too. But we came out on the other side of it with a better understanding of our boundaries and limits as touring musicians and as human beings,” Landon explains. “My trans identity has taken years to come to terms with, but I feel like I’ve settled in a place over the last year where I love and accept myself more than I ever have before. I am eternally grateful to my family, friends and bandmates for their love, care and patience as I’ve gone through these strange periods of reflection over the last five years.”
As the members of Palmyra continue to tour and sing about the places they’ve been and the people they continue to grow into, their introspective songs are inspiring others. Landon adds that there’s something incredibly cathartic about performing these songs every night.
“Over time, the meaning of a tune changes and evolves for each of us, but we try to bring our present selves to each performance so that the songs continue to grow and land with us and with the audience,” they say. “We get to have conversations with fans every night about what they appreciate about a given tune. It’s one of the greatest gifts we’ve ever received: to hear how our songs are connecting with the folks listening to them.”