Singer-songwriter Mt. Gribley returns this winter with Moss on the Stone, a deeply personal, 10-track meditation on distance, memory, and messy middle-ground emotions.
MILFORD, CT (December 12, 2025) - Indie-folk troubadour Mt. Gribley (the musical moniker of Matt Jarrett) is set to release his deeply intimate new album Moss on the Stone on Friday, December 12th, 2025. A stirring folk chronicle of love, loss, and letting go, the 10-song collection offers a raw, emotionally layered journey through themes of familial sacrifice, anxiety, and quiet resilience - what Jarrett calls “a break-up album, minus the break-up.” Written during a time of personal upheaval and recorded over just five days, the album feels both immediate and weathered - like it’s been sitting in the woods waiting to be found.
While Moss on the Stone touches on themes of heartbreak and emotional distance, its roots are more nuanced. When his wife moved to the UK to pursue a PhD, Jarrett remained in Connecticut -suddenly navigating long-distance partnership, full-time work, and the unexpected role of solo caregiving for his teenage stepchild. “In a way, I became a single parent overnight - working, paying bills, holding down the fort, and dealing with the emptiness that comes from not having your person around. That’s where this record comes from.” What emerged is a full-length album shaped by three years of quiet transformation marked by separation, responsibility, and the quiet, often unnoticed resilience it takes to keep moving forward. Moss on the Stone is a weathered collection of songs carved from sleepless nights, distant love, and the stubborn ache of continuing on when your heart would rather not.
Album art for 'Moss On the Stone', artwork by Jakub Woziwodzki
Anchored by Mt. Gribley's signature garage-folk aesthetic - unpolished, evocative, and lyrically rich - the album arrives as the follow-up to this year’s stirring single “Mourning Light”, which introduced listeners to his gift for stark confessionals and minimalist storytelling. His latest work expands that sonic palette, echoing the moody textures of Frightened Rabbit and the folk sensibility of Gordon Lightfoot, all with the honesty of someone recording straight from the gut. While his understated acoustic textures and introspective, sharp-edged lyricism has been described as “soft-shoed folk” or “uptempo sad songs,” Jarrett insists there’s light at the end of each track... even if the mood starts dark, the songs always land in a place of resolve.
The most recent single “Between the Walls” (out November 28th) sets a tone that diverges slightly from the main theme of the album, an introspective folk-rock reckoning on memory, emotional inertia, and fractured identity. Over sparse acoustics and a poetic sense of decay, the track touches on family division, and to some extent, losing a family member due to today's political divisiveness in the US - a perfect meditation for Black Friday, after the "joy" of a Thanksgiving gathering. Other standouts include the title track “Moss on the Stone,” a metaphor-laced ballad on slipping stability, and “Saturn Returns,” a jaded but strangely hopeful anthem for anyone stumbling through personal reinvention. Across the record, Jarrett unpacks themes of long-distance love, spiritual disillusionment, and the weight of familial expectation - all with a diaristic warmth and raw vocal delivery.
Single art for "Between the Walls", artwork by Jakub Woziwodzki
“Moss on the Stone is about stepping aside to support your family....It’s about temporarily rearranging your life, embracing the messy middle ground where mistakes and successes live side-by-side.”
- Mt. Gribley
The album was tracked at Dirt Floor Recording & Production with producer Eric Michael Lichter and mixed by Guido Falivene. Jarrett later added finishing touches at home, layering in subtle background vocals and percussive textures until each song felt “organically complete.” In its quiet catharsis, Moss on the Stone offers no easy answers - just a heartfelt invitation to sit with the uncertainty and maybe, if you’re lucky, find a way forward. Finding beauty in the breakdown, this album is a poetic, unvarnished exploration of what we give up - and who we become - when we try to hold it all together.
About Mt. Gribley:
Mt. Gribley is the minimalist folk project of Milford, Connecticut-based singer-songwriter Matt Jarrett. With finger-picked rhythms, stripped-back arrangements, and lyrics that wrestle with self-doubt and quiet resilience, his songs blend the warmth of folk’s roots with a subtle left turn - introspective, off-kilter, and emotionally raw.
The name Mt. Gribley is a nod to My Side of the Mountain, a favorite childhood book. Jarrett grew up in a divided musical household - his mother raised him on a steady dose of John Denver and Neil Diamond, while his father, a Methodist minister, brought home Wagner operas and hymns. His parents split by the time he was four.
Like many a pastor’s kid, Jarrett started his musical life behind a drum kit in metal bands, then rode the wave of ‘90s grunge. After graduating film school, he moved to New York City, where he spent 18 years editing television shows and chasing dreams of directing movies, all while quietly writing songs on a battered acoustic guitar. His turning point came in the late 2000s, when discovering artists like The Tallest Man on Earth and Iron & Wine sparked a deeper dive into the 1960s folk canon - Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Nick Drake - and ignited a musical reawakening.
Later, a divorce and the death of his father caused him to reassess everything, including his career in reality TV. “After my dad died, there was a piece of his history that I’d never understand,” Jarrett said, “in that he went to college pursuing music, and at some point changed his major to religion and never looked back. I never got a reason why from him. Now, of course, I never will. But I’ve always felt baffled by that decision.”
The encouragement of his wife - now pursuing a PhD overseas - was a crucial push to pursue music more seriously. Her move abroad meant Jarrett took on a new role at home, stepping into full-time parenthood for his teenage stepchild, and finding songwriting material in the silence, responsibility, and longing that followed.
Mt. Gribley’s debut album, Semblance, arrived in 2019 via indie label Resonating Wood Recordings. Originally written, recorded, and mixed entirely by Jarrett, he later had it remixed and re-released as reSemblance - a hard-earned lesson in DIY production. In 2022, he followed up with The Milksop EP, a three-song collection tackling confidence, depression, and learning to get out of your own way. Once again, Jarrett recorded all the parts himself, this time handing off mixing duties to Tony Calabro at Astoria Park Recording. Now he is anticipating his third release - a full length album Moss on The Stone that chronicles the last three years navigating sudden life changes, depression, loneliness, and the art of “keep on keepin' on” even when your heart would rather not.