Singer/songwriter Russell Jamie Johnson has shared his new single,“Bell of Brighton,” ahead of his self-titled album out this Friday, May 15th, 2026. The collection features songs that are “caught between relationships ending and acceptance, between the life you imagined and the one you’re actually living.” The new songs veer towards Indie Folk and Americana accents.

Johnson says of “Bell of Brighton”:

This song is the biggest ‘please love me’ plea I’ve ever written. I was head over heels for this girl and somehow I was always second choice, never enough, or just getting cheated on. I kept going back, thinking if I just loved her harder she would finally change, even though I knew deep down that wasn’t how it worked. She had her own problems too, but I stayed anyway. I didn’t care anymore that it was hurting me. She could lie, she could disappear, but I still loved her and still wanted to see her. There was something about her that could tear you apart with a single look. At some point I just had to let it happen the way it was going to happen.

Together, the group of songs “introduce a narrator caught between past and present, where love, loss, and identity blur into the same recurring question of what remains when everything else has moved on.”

Johnson comments:

I wanted to make a record that doesn’t rush past heartbreak. A lot of music jumps straight to the healing part, but I think there’s something honest about sitting in those emotions for a while when you’re trying to move forward, but you’re still holding onto something that hasn’t fully let go.