Wyatt Flores has a complicated relationship with his home state of Oklahoma. On his debut full-length album, the Stillwater-born singer-songwriter contends with the complex and often violent legacy of his birthplace—detailing his feelings with clear-eyed vulnerability on the opening title track: “Tumbleweeds were free like the Choctaw and Cherokee/Before they had to call this land their home.” It’s a simple but evocative lyric, and the song’s production underscores the darkness at the heart of the track with big, thick electric guitar riffs and whining fiddle. Flores tells Apple Music that one of his main goals on this record was to write with a sense of simplicity, to stop overthinking things so much and commit his ideas to tape. “It’s really just taking a step back from trying to be a perfectionist and just be like, ‘No, this is just art and this is where it is. Say what you want to say and then get out,’” he says. “‘Get out of your own way.’” The rest of the record—produced by The Texas Gentlemen’s Beau Bedford and recorded in short bursts in Asheville, Nashville and Los Angeles—similarly pulls no punches, whether Flores tackles heartache (the crunchy heartland rocker “The Truth”) or youthful abandon (“Stillwater”, which gives Flores a chance to indulge his grungier side through sneering vocals and moody production). Like he did on the album’s predecessor, 2024’s Half Life, Flores also confronts his own mental health on Welcome to the Plains, like admitting to an ex-love on the loose and jangly “Oh Susannah” that he “was a problem only tryna be the cure”. Flores balances out some of that heaviness with moments of levity, though, like the winking “When I Die” line “When I’m in the ground/If I hear you talking shit/I hope I get the chance to be a ghost and scare your kids.” That juxtaposition between darkness and light epitomises the tension that makes Flores’ songs so compelling. “Most of these songs still have double meanings to them,” Flores adds. “Which is the fun part for me, just because they’re so simple but there’s so much meaning behind them.”