As Dan Smyers and Shay Mooney approach middle age, the “Tequila” hitmakers find themselves in an especially reflective place. On this follow-up to the 2023 album Bigger Houses, the duo take honest stock of a transitional period often marked by newfound responsibility, a growing accumulation of losses, and a new, subtler shade of joy of contentment. Co-produced by Smyers and longtime collaborator Scott Hendricks, Young boasts the vocal pyrotechnics and sticky melodies that first earned Dan + Shay fans, but the stories at the heart of each song are rawer and more nuanced. Highlights include the Love Junkies (Lori McKenna, Liz Rose, Hillary Lindsey) co-write “Dogs in Our Twenties,” a heart-wrenchingly relatable song about losing the animals who help us through early adulthood, and the title track, a delicate ballad with sumptuous harmonies. Cody Johnson joins Dan + Shay on “The Old Guys,” which uses classic country references to spin a yarn about the fear of losing a spouse. “The album we needed to make right now, for better or for worse, was an album that was an authentic snapshot of exactly who we are as men,” Smyers tells Apple Music. “And there’s heavy concepts on there. It’s not, ‘We’re on the boardwalk, and there’s a pretty girl walking down the street in Daisy Dukes,’ when you’re 19 or 20 years old. It’s songs about, ‘What if your spouse passes away before you?’ Just the passing of time, losing people you love. I feel like we’re kind of hitting that space in our life.” Below, Dan + Shay share insight into several key tracks. “Her, the Kids, and Jesus” Dan Smyers: “That was the first song we wrote for this album. And after that session, I just feel like a cloud was lifted, and I was like, ‘We got a song. We got one now.’ Then, in that moment, we just got a crazy burst of energy and creativity. And it was like, ‘This is the direction.’” “Dogs in Our Twenties” DS: “My first dog, well, it was [my wife] Abby’s dog when we met, Miller. He was a huge, 90-pound Lab, sweetest dog ever. She got him when she was in college, and I had never had a dog of my own. They teach you to love differently. It’s hard for me to open up to somebody, and I feel like he changed my life. I think about what we went through in our twenties, traveling from place to place. And the line that kills me is, ‘They don’t always get a yard’—Miller, he was there when we were riding in a bus with 14 guys. Abby and Miller are sleeping in the back lounge on everybody’s suitcases and sweaty shoes. And they love you unconditionally.” “The Old Guys” (feat. Cody Johnson) DS: “We wrote that song, and we were like, ‘This would be the dream collab,’ because you don’t always need a collab, but it would’ve been fun to have one on this album. And this album was tough to have one because everything is so personal. We saw him at the ACMs. We’re going to rehearse; he’s going to rehearse. We’re passing by on the ramp going up. It’s like, ‘Yo, man, we got a song.’ He’s like, ‘Don’t even need to hear it—I’m in.’” “Bible in the Truck” Shay Mooney: “That was the story of me learning to drive, pretty much word for word—same truck and all the stuff past the Walmart. Literally, that 59 highway was where I learned to drive and probably at a little too young, age 12. It was very early, because you get a hardship license because you’re so far from everything. Nobody could take me anywhere, so I was driving at 14. Shouldn’t have been driving at 14. But I think about the things I did as a kid, and I’m like, ‘There’s no way I’d let my kids do this.’ I was driving a tractor at six by myself—four-wheelers, the whole deal. My papa, before he passed away, got to hear that one. He was a preacher. He was like, ‘Shay, boy, you got to promise me that that one’s on the album.’”