He’s been called a singer-songwriter who happens to front a bluegrass band, and though the choice is a little more deliberate than that phrase might suggest, there’s still a nugget of truth in the observation, and it arguably applies more than ever to the music on Make Each Second Last, the newest full-length release from Chris Jones and The Night Drivers, out October 15, 2021 on the Mountain Home Music Company label. Filled entirely with material written by Jones and a handful of collaborators that includes both former and current Night Drivers, it’s the veteran artist’s most original and most varied outing yet—and one that, for good measure, introduces two new members of the ensemble.

Given Jones’ hit making track record, it’s no surprise that the first four singles from the album have already reached #1 on Bluegrass Today’s airplay chart. The title comes from “We Needed This Ride,” the first of those to introduce new members Grace van’t Hof (banjo, ukuleles, accordion, vocals) and Marshall Wilborn (bass, vocals) and, with its thrumming baritone ukulele-driven rhythm, a sign that the band would be serving up a broader range of tones and textures than before. Sure enough, the group’s latest single, “Riding the Chief,” goes still further, with its western swing foundation—right down to the twin mandolins, “sock” style guitar and tasteful fiddle from ace session player David Johnson—reintroducing a sound Jones hadn’t brought into the studio in decades.

Yet while the Night Drivers’ tonal palette might have expanded, there’s no doubt that Make Each Second Last is a Chris Jones album, focusing prodigious songwriting talent on enduring Jones themes that encompass more than the usual bluegrass subjects. There are takes on travel, from “We Needed This Ride” to “Whither You Roam” to “Riding the Chief,”  lost love (“Quiet Click”) and life at home (“Leave It at the Gate”) and abroad (“Silver City”), but there are also meditations on less intimate matters, whether it’s the encouragement to speak one’s mind in “We Need To Hear From You,” the compelling observation of “Everybody’s Got A Line” or the compassionate consideration of common humanity in “They’re Lost Too” and cautious, almost wistful hopefulness of “Bed Of Snow.” Whether written with GRAMMY nominee Thomm Jutz, frequent collaborator Jon Weisberger, new colleague van’t Hof, veteran mandolinist Mark Stoffel—that would be the album’s lone instrumental, “Groundhog’s Retreat”—or by Jones himself, there’s not a song or performance in the collection that doesn’t bear Jones’ indelibly distinctive stamp.

With each of the albums he and the Night Drivers have made for Mountain Home—Run Away Tonight (2015), Made To Move (2017), and The Choosing Road (2019)—Chris Jones has dug deeper into a deeply personal synthesis of unique sounds, compelling themes and world-class songcraft, all embedded in a recognizably bluegrass setting, creating a sound whose appeal reaches far beyond the world of bluegrass while remaining firmly grounded within it. On Make Each Second Last, he serves notice that the journey continues.