There’s a loose, freewheeling feel to The Wood Brothers’ seventh studio album, Kingdom in My Mind , a direct result of the trio’s unorthodox (to them) recording process. Singer/guitarist Oliver Wood, singer/bassist Chris Wood and multi-instrumentalist Jano Rix birthed these 11 new songs out of a series of jam sessions at their new studio/rehearsal space in Nashville, and later pieced tracks together from those improvised moments (something Chris knows well from his work in the jazz outfit Medeski Martin & Wood). The follow-up to 2018’s Grammy-nominated One Drop of Truth, Kingdom in My Mind stays true to the core of The Wood Brothers’ Americana sound, thanks to a series of driving rockers and folksy numbers full of clever, catchy songwriting. Album-opener “Alabaster” is emblematic of what makes a Wood Brothers song work: a compelling jazz-meets-blues groove, a hook that sticks with you and Oliver’s alluring, raspy vocals. Chris takes the lead vocal on the rootsy, playful “Jitterbug Love,” where the album title Kingdom in My Mind is cribbed from. Sonically, “Little Bit Sweet” could be an upbeat sequel to fan-favorite “Postcards From Hell” (and seems destined for the encore slot of the band’s future live shows). Lyrically, the album often explores the balance— or struggle—between light and dark that many face on a daily basis. “Don’t Think About My Death,” for example, is about managing the “stories in [your] head” and finding solace in the arms of a lover. It’s fitting, then, that on the bluesy “Little Bit Broken,” Oliver comes to the realization that everybody—Rix, Chris and himself included—”Is a little bit broken/ And it’s alright.”