Ruth B. – Peace To Make

For me, Peace To Make is somehow a pop album of quiet shades.

And by “quiet”, I do not necessarily mean the volume. It is more a record that is not constantly fighting for attention. No overloaded productions, no choruses that insist on being bigger than the song itself. Instead, a voice, piano, guitars, warm textures, subtle beats, and a surprising amount of space between them.

And that is exactly why I recommend it. You simply let this record play and eventually realise you have been listening for 40 minutes. But as soon as you listen more closely, you discover some deeply personal stories behind that apparent lightness.

Peace To Make was released on 21 August 2026. It is Ruth B.’s third studio album and her first in five years. She made it with six-time Grammy winner Cole M.G.N., who produced the entire record and has worked with Beck, Carly Rae Jepsen and Christine and the Queens, among others.

Live first, write afterwards

Ruth B.’s real name is Ruth Berhe. She comes from Edmonton in Canada and grew up as the daughter of Ethiopian parents. Her career began in a rather unusual way: in 2013, she posted short singing videos on Vine. A little idea inspired by Peter Pan eventually became “Lost Boy”: practically the first proper song she had written, and also her international breakthrough. Years later, “Dandelions” found a huge second life through TikTok.

What I find much more interesting, though, is her approach to songwriting. Ruth says that she needs to live and have experiences before she can write about them. The five years since Moments in Between were therefore apparently not a deliberately planned break. During that time, among other things, a long-term relationship ended. At first, she simply wrote the early songs to process what had happened. Only after two or three songs did she realise: perhaps an album is taking shape here.

And that is exactly what Peace To Make is about: the end of a relationship and, above all, what happens to you afterwards. Doubts, memories, jealousy, the question “What if?” and, eventually, the realisation that finding peace does not necessarily mean having answers to every question.

Finding your way back to yourself

A few songs illustrate this particularly beautifully. Even its title, “Jealous”, points you slightly in the wrong direction: Ruth is not simply jealous of another woman, but longs for the love she herself gives but does not receive in return.

“Breathe” goes deeper still. The song came out of a difficult period in her personal life. During a stay in Banff, surrounded by that vast landscape, Ruth suddenly found it liberating to feel, for a moment, that she and her own problems were very small.

And then, at the end, comes “Pick Me”.

At first, the title sounds like: choose me.

But what she means is the opposite:

I choose myself.

It was the last song Ruth wrote for the record, and she immediately knew that it had to close the album as well. In a way, it tells the whole story of the record: a relationship ends, she searches for answers, remembers, doubts, and eventually finds her way back to herself.

Seeing the cover anew

And then there is that cover.

When I first saw it, I honestly imagined a different album behind it. Ruth B. sits confidently, sexily and almost defiantly in front of the camera. Legs apart on a simple chair, looking straight at you, in white fur, black stockings and high heels. At first, that seems completely at odds with these quiet and sometimes deeply vulnerable songs.

But once I understood what the record was about, I suddenly saw the cover differently.

Perhaps it does not show the woman at the beginning of this story.

Perhaps it shows the woman at the end.

You could read her posture as “Look what you have missed”. For me, though, it goes a step further:

“Go ahead and look. But I no longer need you. I have found myself again.”

That is, of course, my interpretation. But for me, it fits “Pick Me” and the journey of this record remarkably well.

Pop with room to breathe

Musically, it is all remarkably restrained. Ruth names Lana Del Rey and early Lorde as influences on the sound, and Lauryn Hill, Etta James, Aretha Franklin and Carole King on her songwriting. Then there is the Ethiopian music she grew up with.

Perhaps that explains why Peace To Make is clearly pop and yet does not feel like a typical modern pop album.

It does not want to impress you.

It wants to tell a story.

And that is exactly why it is my album of the week. A record that does not try to win you over with a big effect in the first 30 seconds, but draws closer, warmly, quietly and almost without you noticing.

What stays with me

A pop album of quiet shades

Somehow, a pop album of quiet shades.