So Runs the World Away by Josh Ritter

So Runs the World Away, Josh Ritter's sixth studio album, first surfaced as a vinyl release for Record Store Day on April 17, 2010, with a CD packed in alongside, before the proper rollout in Ireland on April 23 and everywhere else on May 4. Ritter lifted the title from Hamlet, out of the play's third act, a fitting source for a songwriter prized for storytelling Americana.

Ritter framed it as the start of a new chapter in his life, and he described these songs as bigger and more detailed than before, like oil paintings on huge canvases. You can hear that reach in the folk rock sweep of "Change of Time" and in "The Curse". Paste had already named him among its 100 Greatest Living Songwriters back in 2006.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.