Avery Hellman has been a rancher, an alt-country musician, and, always, a dreamer. But they recently found themself once more while looking for Lucinda Williams. In 2023, Hellman was hard at work on an album, podcast, and documentary delving into the psyche of the country singer-songwriter when they discovered how much poetry played into Williams’ general talents. “That was a really big shift for me,” Hellman says. “I was like, ‘Well, why don’t I learn how to write poetry?’” Add another job to that resume.

Coincidentially, Hellman had been invited to the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Nevada, where they presented a few early poems — and opened the barn door. Creativity stampeded out, and, with the help of co-writer/producer Sam Cohen, they penned their new record as alt-country project ISMAY, Half Truth, out June 12th 2026 on Fossil Records. “My intention with the album, especially given the fact that a lot of the songs started as poems, wasn’t to be perfect,” they say. “I wanted the words to be in the forefront — not smooth, but raw.”

The result is an 11-song suite of wry yet lonesome tracks about rodeo horses, salvation, and finding yourself—again and again.