I love that first stretch of disbelief when you first hear a really good song. Like, come on, how can each line be arranged so perfectly? How can music feel so effortless when it is clearly borne of such great effort? This is the magic of many great songwriters past and present, including David Berman, who famously labored over sentence structure and stressed syllables until the lyrics fell simply and miraculously out of his mouth. You’ll surely hear the long, lonesome shadow of Silver Jews and Purple Mountains as you put on Louisville singer-songwriter Ryan Davis’ new single, a dazzling showcase of a songwriter who similarly makes the hard work sound easy.

While Davis has been writing and touring for many years with his old group State Champion and his new Roadhouse Band, “New Threats from the Soul” feels like a dam break, a flood of sublime, witty, and dryly devastating lyrics that count among some of the best I’ve heard this decade. He’s an acolyte of the greats—the dry humor of Dolly Parton or John Prine comes to mind when he sings, “I’m scramblin’ to find Christ in all the places I’m told he likes”—but by the end of this metaphysical, existential, heartbreaking country song, he’s hung out his own shingle. Backed by his barroom band of ringers and alt-country icon Catherine Irwin of Freakwater, Davis’ drawl offers the kind of wisdom written in or on bathroom stalls across America: “You can see the kingdom from the tailgate if you stack a couple coolers/But you’re never going to see it from the front of the line.” His writing is so lived-in and generous, so spiritual and hungover—nine minutes spent in this song is the best time you’ll spend all day.