You’ve got to know where you’ve been to know where you’re going, as the old saw goes. It’s a truism Taylor Craig Mills took to heart when creating his new EP, Go Forth.
The acclaimed Fort Worth-based singer-songwriter is no stranger to the North Texas scene; his involvement stretches back 25 years with bands such as Un Chien and Voigt, and his own solo work.
However, given that it’s been 13 years since Mills released his debut LP, Don’t Ever Look Back Twice, a reintroduction of sorts is in order — on both sides of the stage.
The four-track Go Forth recasts three Twice tracks as it introduces listeners to the Mills of today, via the new tune “Bottles Away,” a ferocious piece of self-lacerating songcraft confronting time’s relentless toll: “My bones are getting older/And my heart beats a little stranger,” Mills howls.
“Away” is an enticing appetizer for Mills’ forthcoming sophomore album, Good Night You Devils, which he’s targeting for an early 2026 release. Mills will celebrate the Aug. 1 release of Go Forth with a full band performance at the Post in Fort Worth, with opening act Joe Bill Rose of Holy Moly.
It was the desire to start a family and turn away from the grind of making music independently which led to the initial gap between Twice and Go Forth. Re-recording his back catalog with his current perspective proved an interesting exercise, to hear Mills tell it.
“It changed [the songs] a little bit,” Mills said during a recent conversation. “Look, when you’re young and you’ve got delusions of grandeur, you’re trying to write in these widescreen perspectives that everybody’s gonna feel and understand, right? I look back now and I’m like, ‘Man, I think I hit the nail on the head’ on quite a few things. But I was lucky, because I was young when I was writing all of that stuff — I was already a little bit world-weary.”
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Good Night You Devils, Mills said, is a project he’s had more or less complete since 2020. Life — the birth of his children; the death of his father — has prolonged Devils’ release, even as it gave him new insight to his own creative process.
“I feel like I’ve lived three different lives since I released Don’t Ever Look Back Twice,” Mills said. “A lot has changed in my world. The mental health aspects of being a man and a provider and a father figure in this kind of modern-day world allowed me to go back and look at some of my writing and go, ‘I see this the same way, but very differently.’”
For all the stop-start momentum and seasons which have slipped past, Mills is remarkably sanguine about where he finds himself on the eve of his first release in more than a decade.
“It’s about the journey I’ve come through, number one, but number two, if that can help anybody as far as their mental state, or them trying to figure out how to keep pressing on, no matter how hard their life has turned [out to be] — you got to just keep going forward,” Mills said.
Taylor Craig Mills at The Post, Fort Worth. 8 p.m. Aug. 1. Tickets are $25-$54.
Preston Jones is a North Texas freelance writer and regular contributor to KXT. Email him at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky (@prestonjones.bsky.social).Our work is made possible by our generous, music-loving members. If you like how we lift up local music, consider becoming a KXT sustaining member right here.
