Just when we think we know what we've come to expect from the Pines — the title and album art for their new album, Above the Prairie, just might be the Pinesiest thing they've released so far — or consider brushing them off as another in a long string of Americana bands, they put out a new song that hits so close to the gut that it reminds us that they are truly a singular band.

With his voice sounding more weary and vulnerable than ever, singer Benson Ramsey pleads to "hold, hold onto me," with his bandmate David Huckfelt sighs longingly in the background. There is something downright unnerving about Ramsey's voice on this new single, "Aerial Ocean." Where has he been? Where is he going? One gets the sense that it's he who is floating high above the prairie, looking down at the world and trying to figure out how to come down.

Above the Prairie is due out February 5, 2015, on Red House Records. Listen to "Aerial Ocean" here: