Infusing Oklahoma roots with the untamed energy of a rebel rocker, Sony Music Nashville’s Corey Kent has made a career of stretching sonic bounds and standing on conviction. But with new trust in his instincts and the buzz of two career-caliber hits-in-the-making, his third major label country album marks a breakthrough.

Authoritatively titled Heartland Rock and Roll, the scrappy singer-songwriter creates a sound so definitive, it needed a new name. Golden-hour nostalgia meets gratitude and grit in a mellow, slow burn of raspy country soul, and it hasn’t gone unnoticed. Kent’s rugged single “Rocky Mountain Low (feat. Koe Wetzel)” is climbing radio charts faster than any previous release, while the gusty “Empty Words” escaped its deep-cut fate to become a viral sensation. To the now-seasoned creative force, the word epiphany comes to mind.

“I don’t know why it wasn’t more obvious to me sooner,” Kent says. “Like, ‘Dude, your path is not going to look like everybody else’s path, and your decisions aren’t going to look like everybody else’s either.’ I’ve been fighting my differences for so long, but now it’s like, ‘Let’s just use those.’”

The lesson didn’t come easy. Rising from the dancehalls and dive bars around his home in Bixby, Oklahoma, Kent describes his early Nashville career as a “dogfight,” battling for every inch of progress. Inspired by Springsteen and CCR as much as Strait or B&D, he was famously forced to move home and work for a paving company in 2020, before returning with an organic hit (and a chip on shoulder) for his 2023 debut, Blacktop. His sophomore album Black Bandana carried that same underdog spirit, and so did a series of hard-won victories.

Slowly, methodically, Kent has earned two Number Ones at country radio to date – including the 3X Platinum “Wild As Her” and Gold-certified “This Heart,” which took over a year to reach its 2025 peak. Add that to a Platinum certification for “Something’s Gonna Kill Me” (that one took two years), and Kent now counts over 1 billion career streams and an international fanbase, built on headline tours and support for Morgan Wallen, Jason Aldean, and others. All of it came the hard way, with Kent having to prove the mettle of his unorthodox vision. But he now says there’s “beauty in a slow build.” Drawing on the confidence of experience, and emboldened by a sense of personal peace, he’s spent the last two years weaving Heartland Rock and Roll into a defining body of work.

“If you’re an artist, you hope to have that record – the one that when people think about you, they think about that record,” the rising star explains. “When I think about Eric Church, I think about Chief. When I think about Chris Stapleton, I think about Traveller. They’re a stamp in time and they live on their own, and I’ve always hoped to have one. For the first time in my career, I feel like I do.”

Named in a purposeful nod to its divergent nature, 16 tracks revel in Kent’s differences. Forever blurring the line between country, rock, and soul, smoke-and-sunset vocals guide Kent through a series of vivid, salt-of-the-earth small-town soundtracks. Dusky sonics drift off into the Midwestern night; warm distortion brings back the perfection of summer, circa way-back-when; and crushing grooves capture the pain of a broken heart.