Bryant Barnes Finds Healing in the Hurt on Debut Album Solace
At just 22, Bryant Barnes isn’t running from heartbreak, he’s sitting in it, unflinching. The Mercury Records signee has officially announced Solace, his debut full-length album dropping October 17, and it plays like the quiet hum of grief finally naming itself. 18 tracks. One intention: vulnerability.
Revealed via Instagram, the album cover captures Barnes standing alone outside a modest church under a star-drenched sky, palms open, eyes shut, as if surrendering to something bigger than him. In the caption, he simply wrote:
“18 SONGS OF PURE VULNERABILITY. THANK YOU TO EVERYONE THAT HELPED ME PUT THIS TOGETHER.”
And that says it all. The album includes previously released fan-favorite I’d Rather Pretend, the stunning Two Sides of Goodbye, and his new single Priceless, a Rykeyz-produced ballad that tugs at the concept of love’s worth. “You’re one of one, can’t be replaced / Ooh, I want you for life,” Barnes sings, framing love not as luxury, but necessity — the kind of connection that can’t be bought, only felt.
Solace is the follow-up to Vanity, Barnes’ 2023 debut EP that introduced his sonic diary to the world. Tracks like Don’t Want a Love Song and Give Me A Sign carved out space for an artist who doesn’t chase trends but mines his own emotional terrain. Barnes’ ability to sit in stillness and make it symphonic puts him in the lineage of artists like Frank Ocean, d4vd, and Daniel Caesar, all of whom use heartbreak as blueprint, not burden.
Speaking of d4vd, the fellow alt-R&B outlier, who also hails from the same hometown as Barnes, will appear on the album’s duet It’s You. It marks their second official collaboration after the remix of I’d Rather Pretend, a track that’s quietly become Gen Z’s new sad-boy anthem.
“I’ve been wanting to work with d4vd for a while, even when he first began music,” Barnes shared. “Growing up, he lived like 10 minutes away from me… it just made sense.”
Currently on the road supporting d4vd’s Withered Tour, Barnes is already earning his stripes as a stage artist. But Solace isn’t about proving anything to the industry, it’s about making space for the feelings that don’t have a genre.
