Owls, Omens and Oracles is the sixth studio album by American singer Valerie June. It was released on April 11, 2025, by Concord Records.
Background The album was produced by M. Ward and consists of fourteen songs, including the lead single, "Joy, Joy!", which was released on February 4, 2025, alongside a music video directed by Taylor Washington. The album incorporates elements of folk, blues, gospel, and soul, and features collaborators such as the Blind Boys of Alabama and Norah Jones.
Reception
In Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean out of 100, the album got a 87, which indicates "universal acclaim", from 7 critic reviews.
Timothy Monger of AllMusic described Owls, Omens and Oracles as "a textured, grungy-sounding album, full of melody, soul, and inspired songwriting." The Guardian rated the album four out of five stars and stated "The Tennessee singer-songwriter's joyful new album pushes back against the bleakness of doomscrolling." Paste Magazine assigned it a rating of 8.0 out of ten, calling the album "a necessary reminder missing from swaths of contemporary music that happiness is just as potent a tool for beating back the darkness as anger."
Track listing
Personnel Credits adapted from Tidal.
Musicians Valerie June – vocals (all tracks), acoustic guitar (tracks 1–7, 10, 12, 14), clapping (6), banjo (12) M. Ward – electric guitar (tracks 1–10, 12, 13), acoustic guitar (2, 3, 6, 9, 10, 12, 13); glockenspiel, piano (2); background vocals (6, 13), clapping (6), marimba (14) Kaveh Rastegar – bass guitar (tracks 1–10, 12, 14) Stephen Hodges – drums (tracks 1–10, 12, 14), percussion (1–4, 7, 12) Nate Walcott – string arrangement (tracks 1–3, 7, 8, 12), horn arrangement (1, 5–8, 14), keyboards (1), Hammond organ (2–4, 7, 8, 12), piano (2, 5–7, 10, 14), trumpet (5–8, 14), clapping (6) Vanessa Freebairn-Smith – cello (tracks 1–3, 7, 12) Luanne Homzy – viola, violin (tracks 1–3, 7, 12) Paul Cartwright – viola, violin (tracks 1–3, 7, 12) Zach Delanger – viola, violin (tracks 1–3, 7, 12) Sylvain Carton – baritone saxophone (tracks 1, 5–7, 14) Josh Johnson – tenor saxophone (tracks 1, 5–7, 14) Vikram Devasthali – trombone (tracks 1, 5–7, 14) The Blind Boys of Alabama – background vocals (track 7) DJ Cavem Moetavation – programming (track 8) Norah Jones – background vocals (track 9)
Technical M. Ward – production Greg Calbi – mastering Steve Fallone – mastering Kennie Takahashi – mixing (tracks 1–12, 14) Pierre de Reeder – mixing (track 13), engineering (all tracks) Case Newcomb – engineering (track 7) Jamie Landry – engineering (track 9) Dani Bennett Spragg – editing
Charts + Chart performance for Owls, Omens and Oracles Chart (2026) Peakposition Greek Albums (IFPI) 33
References