Black Prairie have a new record coming out next month, and NPR posted a first taste of the upcoming A Tear in the Eye Is a Wound in the Heart (an album title nearly long enough to put fear in the heart of Fiona Apple). Take a listen to "How Do You Ruin Me" here, in advance of the album's release on September 18. The band's been through quite a lot since their first album, Feast of the Hunter's Moon, came out a short while back in 2010. Member Jenny Conlee had a successful recovery from a cancer scare, and the ensemble also scored the play Storm in the Barn for Oregon Children's Theater—not to mention that Conlee, bassist Nate Query, and dobro player Chris Funk had a number one record with some other band.

A Tear in the Etc. is a bit more vocally oriented than what we've heard from Black Prairie in the past, with violinist Annalisa Tornfelt taking lead vocals on a number of the album's tracks. She wrote the atmospheric, corkscrew-tight "How Do You Ruin Me," and told NPR that she'd been suffering from writer's block for a while, but spontaneously wrote this one on guitar after she got home one night from a neighborhood bluegrass jam.

LISTEN:

Black Prairie - "How Do You Ruin Me"

Black Prairie plays Mississippi Studios on Friday, September 21.