Article Contributed by Sarah J Frost
Published on 2026-10-25
Alaska-based singer-songwriter Josh Fortenbery’s songs offer honest, self-deprecating observations about the world around him. His magnifying glass often centers on relatable anxieties—tied together, it's what he calls both neurotic folk and existential country. He's releasing a surprise EP, Oh Rejoice—a follow-up, of sorts, to last year's Tidy Memorial. Where the album mourned a variety of circumstances, Fortenbery is discovering tinges of healthy perspective these days.
“I'm finding these strange flecks of optimism creeping into my cynicism. I'm at a point in my life where I don't know if that's a taste of the wisdom of age or the dregs of youth,” he says.
Don't be led completely astray, though; this set of songs stays true to a biting honesty. While Fortenbery is known to take an introspective turn, he continues what he started with Tidy Memorial and, in his commentary, takes a wider look at the world around him.
“‘If I Believed in Heaven’ is my hymn for evangelical nationalists,” he says. “Over the last few years, I've come to understand that there's this wild loophole in certain readings of the Bible. I'm not religious, so I must have missed this, but it sounds pretty handy. Essentially, I think if you go to the right church and accept the right Jesus (obviously one of the blonde ones), that's really all that's required to go to heaven. No need to be kind, or help the poor, or love your neighbor. There are a lot of greedy, war-mongering, xenophobic people out there who claim to love God and Jesus, and if they're all going to heaven, then the rest of us have it all wrong.”
Elsewhere, the title track, “Oh Rejoice,” is a pep talk for himself. “Rabbit Holes” is the first song he's written that's inspired by a podcast. The podcast—also named Rabbit Holes—considered how media algorithms can lead people to more and more extreme beliefs.
“In it, I satirize people inspired by podcasts, so I guess I'm a hypocrite,” he says. “While I don't have any sympathy for the extremist beliefs people arrive at, I have some empathy for vulnerable folks who were led down the primrose path of pseudo-philosophy by click-baiters and provocateurs. If people were tricked into their bubbles, maybe there's a path back to inhabiting the same factual bubble someday.”
“I've been writing about music for over 20 years now. I would have said I've heard every angle imaginable about how a songwriter approaches their craft. I would have been wrong.” — Twangville
“This EP started as a collection of misfits—a few songs I've been playing live that won't fit on the next record, and a few I've only played at home but wanted to record before I forgot about them,” he says. “Still, there is a bit of a common thread running through these tunes—loneliness, looking for meaning, and the comedy of finding meaning for some people.”
Fortenbery has been compared to a “Nordic John Prine.” Self-described as self-absorbed but rarely self-serious, he sings sad songs but smiles a lot and usually means it. Among his proudest identities is that of an Alaskan artist and a founding member of The Muskeg Collective. He released his second album, Tidy Memorial, in October 2025. It's “relatable because he doesn't pretend to have answers or moral high ground…” (No Depression). Rolling Stone notes the album is “big on electric instruments, but it's also decidedly country, with Fortenbery's baritone vocals front and center.”
