It’s been six years since Mississippi/Memphis-bred songwriter Cory Branan’s last officially released full-length album, 12 Songs, but we’re finally getting a follow-up. Last week, venerable Chicago indie Bloodshot Records announced it had signed Branan and would be releasing his third album, Mutt, sometime this spring.

โ€œWe’ve had our eye on Cory for just about as long as he’s been honing his air-tight, clever version of the perfect story-song,โ€ Bloodshot publicist Josh Zanger wrote in a release announcing the signing. โ€œSo after falling in love with a demo of his new material, we jumped at the chance to add him to the fold.โ€

Cory Branan
  • Cory Branan

โ€œWe had been negotiating for about three months,โ€ Branan says, by phone from Nashville yesterday afternoon, saying that he finally signed the deal in December while in Chicago for a gig.

Mutt was recorded in San Francisco a couple of years ago and has been in limbo while Branan talked to various labels, finally finding a deal he liked with Bloodshot.