Ty Myers seemed to come out of nowhere with his 2025 debut album The Select, an unusually assured introduction to the then-17-year-old singer, songwriter and guitarist. Now, a little older but still a teenager, Myers proves The Select wasn’t a fluke with this sophomore project, which is bigger, bolder and bound to push Myers’ star higher. For Heavy on the Soul, Myers leans into the influences that informed The Select—Continuum-era John Mayer, Chris Stapleton, the late Stevie Ray Vaughan—while fleshing out his own sound, which, like the album’s title implies, infuses soulfulness into pop, adult contemporary and country-tinged rock. “Message to You” is subtle and introspective, with tasteful, Mayer-esque licks accenting verses about missing loved ones while out on the road. “Run, Run, Run” is loose and groovy, sounding like a beacon from another, earlier era (the album was recorded at famed Muscle Shoals outpost FAME Studios, after all). And “Through a Screen” finds Myers navigating a burgeoning long-distance relationship, wondering how he could fall in love with someone he only knows virtually. Myers has a friend join him on the album, too, tapping guitar-slinger Marcus King to guest on “Two Trains”, a Southern rocker that makes the most of King’s funky fretwork.