In many ways, Max Wareham’s sophomore album, If the Cosmos Were Whiskey… is his functional debut. 

Following 2025’s DAGGOMIT!, produced by Wareham’s boss, Peter Rowan, Cosmos is all Wareham. The banjoist produced and mixed the LP, nixed guest lead vocalists and wrote or co-wrote seven of the nine tracks; the covers are well-chosen including heartbreaking version of “Never Grow Old,” which closes the mood-swinging LP on a faithful, but somber, note. 

It opens with the instrumental “Old Silver Lounge,” which sets the scene in a bluegrass speakeasy equipped with a drum kit. It’s then off to the lake with the whimsical and uptempo “I’m Just Along for the Ride,” whose lyrics provide the album title and find Wareham declaring: “I’m a mallard on a rocket with the world in my cup.” 

Wareham plumbs the weary sadness of Nashville and sings in hangdog harmony with the honey-sweet Lily Sexton to mourn the loss of a beloved companion on “Nobody Plays the Zither Anymore.” This includes Wareham, who outfits the song with pedal steel, there is no zither, before aping the melody of “Lay Down Sally” to celebrate the joy of flapjacks amid clattering percussion on “Milk, Butter & Eggs.” 

The playfulness is offset by such numbers as “Closer to You”—think “Riders on the Storm” with bluegrass instrumentation—and the languid “If I Had My Way,” whose protagonist keeps showing up at the narrator’s place for some unnamed, but understood, reason. Until he doesn’t. 

“Let’s not pretend we don’t know that you’re leavin’/once you’ve taken everything that you want,” Wareham sings on the final pass of the chorus that previously began with: “Let’s not pretend we don’t know what you’re here for.” 

Sophomore slumps be damned, Wareham’s come into his own with If the Cosmos Were Whiskey… a record sure to please fans of bluegrass with attitude.