Eric Church performs new music from 'Evangeline vs. The Machine' at ACM Awards 2025
Clad in a brown leather jacket and his trademark Ray-Ban sunglasses, Church delivered a rousing performance of the album's first single.
The eight-track album features the accompaniment of a symphony-style orchestra, gospel choir and swampy, rock-style instrumentation.
"Hands of Time" is the most solo-empowered and award-stage ready of the album's tracks. Notably, it name-checks artists who have inspired his latest, plus his eight prior critically-acclaimed releases, including Waylon Jennings, Tom Petty, Bob Seger and Frank Sinatra.
Church said that the album celebrates artists' perpetual struggle against the music industry's fear-driven desire to make risk-averse music that "denies the faith artists need to have in their creative spirit to feel artistically or commercially fulfilled," in a press release.
"Creativity is untamable and often requires faith for it to show itself. The Machine will often whisper, or even scream, doubt. Yet, the rewards were evident every time I stayed true to this path. An artist, musician, songwriter, or peer sending me a text, calling me, or stopping me somewhere in person and telling me (the risks I take) inspired them...they don't think they could ever get away with that same risk themselves. The real truth is that they absolutely can and they absolutely should."
Since its release, "Hands of Time" has climbed into the Top 30 at country radio after receiving Church's career-best 135 first-week station rotation additions.
Church will also bring "Evangeline vs. The Machine" on the road to fans in arenas nationwide with his Free the Machine Tour. Tickets to most shows are available to the general public beginning May 9 at 10 a.m. local time (with the Philadelphia date on sale May 16).
For more information, visit EricChurch.com.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Eric Church performs music from new album at ACM Awards 2025
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