Katie Pruitt’s Mantras is a bold and introspective follow-up to her critically acclaimed debut Expectations, diving even deeper into themes of identity, healing, and inner transformation. Where Expectations chronicled her experience growing up queer in the Christian South, Mantras finds Pruitt exploring her own internal landscape—confronting self-doubt, rewriting old narratives, and learning to speak to herself with compassion.

The Nashville-based singer/songwriter shapes these stories with emotional clarity and sonic range, drawing on folk, indie rock, and lush pop elements. Produced by Collin Pastore and Jake Finch (boygenius, Lucy Dacus), the album trades a traditional Americana palette for a more expansive sound, with overdriven guitars, dreamy textures, and unexpected details—like AM radio static and xylophone—that heighten the emotional impact of each track.

Songs like “All My Friends (Are Finding New Beliefs)” and “White Lies, White Jesus and You” grapple with spiritual disillusionment and shifting worldviews, while “Blood Related” reflects on family division and the slow work of reconciliation. Elsewhere, “Self Sabotage” captures the weight of negative thought loops, and “Naive Again” aches with the bittersweet wish to unsee adulthood’s harder truths.

Throughout Mantras, Pruitt’s voice remains the anchor—clear, expressive, and unwaveringly honest. The record charts a journey from internal chaos to clarity, from seeking validation externally to building a home within. By the final track, “Standstill,” she arrives at a quiet peace, offering listeners not just catharsis, but a path toward self-love and trust.

Ultimately, Mantras is both a personal reckoning and a universal offering—an invitation to sit with discomfort, unlearn the things that hurt us, and return to ourselves with more patience, more love, and more light.