The Red Clay Strays won Group of the Year at the ACM Awards in Las Vegas and used the stage to play “Demons In Your Choir,” adding another marker to a rise that began with a cover band and now stretches to one of country music’s biggest nights. Shania Twain hosted the show for the first time in her career, but the Alabama band left with one of the evening’s most meaningful prizes.

That win lands at a moment when the red clay strays are heading toward another career step: the release of Grateful, their third studio album, set to arrive a few weeks after the awards. The band’s path to this point has moved fast since 2022, when it put out its debut album Moment of Truth and saw “Wondering Why” catch fire on TikTok, turning a regional act into a national name.

From the start, the group’s sound has carried a steady line of faith and survival through hard times. Brandon Coleman said Moment of Truth was “a big album about having faith in dark times, looking to a higher power” and that Made By These Moments built on that by focusing on “realizing those dark times that you were having to have faith through, which made you who you are.” He added, “You made it through when you didn’t think you would,” and said, “Now we’re at a point where we’re grateful.” Coleman also said, “Looking to God in whatever situation you’re in is a denominator in all of the albums.”

The band’s second album, Made by These Moments, arrived in 2024 and helped set up the current stretch. Andrew Bishop said the new title fits the moment plainly, saying, “The title of the album’s a literal meaning to us at this moment in our careers.” He added, “We’re grateful for how we came out of Made By These Moments and what we have now.”

Before the awards show, the group had already built a reputation beyond radio and touring. The Red Clay Strays also lent their talents to films like Doctor Sleep and Twisters, widening a resume that now includes an ACM trophy and a national audience. Their ascent has been unusually quick, but it has not been accidental: a band that started as a cover act with Coleman, Andrew Bishop and Drew Nix has kept pushing its own songs into bigger rooms.

The question now is not whether the band has broken through. It has. The next test is whether Grateful can turn a breakthrough year into something lasting, with an album title that sounds less like a slogan than a summary of where they believe they are in 2026.