Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Lots of new post-Voice music has been released in the past two weeks, including new songs from former finalists Chevel Shepherd and the Swon Brothers and an EP from Season 7 standout James David Carter.

Here’s a look at each of those releases.

The links take you to the releases on Apple Music. Or you can check out the Spotify snippets below.

* Chevel Shepherd, the Season 15 champion on The Voice, released “Just Like the Circus,” a classic-sounding country single on Friday. The song finds Chevel, now 18, receiving an invite to rekindle an on-again, off-again relationship but realizing that “just like the circus, you always leave town.” She eventually declines, and calls the song one of empowerment in an interview with CMT.com. The matching circus-themed music video also dropped Friday. The song was written by Kacey Musgraves, Shane McAnally and Ashley Arrison.

* James David Carter from Season 7 has released a five-song EP called “Green Light.” The excellent title track, he says, is a song he’s been playing live at shows for years. Writes James of “Green Light”: “This is probably the most honest and raw song I’ve ever written because I wrote it the night I found out some unfortunate things about the one who I thought loved me. But the cool thing is we live and learn, and God ultimately protects us from things not meant for us in the end.”

* The Swon Brothers, with their sophomore album a week away, continue releasing a song from it each week. This week, it’s “Best of the Best,” a tune written by the all-star team of Phillip Sweet, Jimi Westbrook, Corey Crowder and Tyler Hubbard. Zach Colton calls it a rocking, catchy tune, one both he and brother Colton gravitated toward, though they listened to the demo separately. That sophomore album from the Season 3 duo is called “Nashlahoma” and is available for pre-order.