MTS Records and award-winning singer-songwriter Digney Fignus are set to unveil Digney’s newest single, “The Emperor Wears No Clothes,” on June 20, 2025, across all major digital platforms. The track is currently available for pre-order and pre-save at https://hypeddit.com/digneyfignus/theemperorwearsnoclothes. A standout from Fignus’ upcoming album, Black and Blue – The Brick Hill Sessions, (scheduled for August 22nd release), the single offers a biting and thought-provoking reflection on power, deception, and truth. With its infectious groove and masterful storytelling, “The Emperor Wears No Clothes” continues Fignus’ tradition of crafting socially conscious Americana with depth and wit.

Read the press release.

Upcoming Gigs

Request a private gig here.

Join Digney's Mailing List

Latest Press

Naked Truth and Acoustic Fire: Digney Fignus Strips It All Down on The Emperor Wears No Clothes

Some songs walk in the room like they’ve got something to prove. Others? They just throw off the robe, stand there bare, and dare you to look away. Digney Fignus’s “The Emperor Wears No Clothes” is the latter—a rootsy, ragged, truth-telling anthem for a world that’s gotten far too comfortable with the lie.

Fignus has never been one to color inside the lines. From Boston punk stages to Americana radio dials, he’s carved his own lane through decades of noise, nuance, and narrative. And now, with this lead single off his upcoming album Black and Blue – The Brick Hill Sessions (out August 22), he’s not pulling punches—he’s peeling back the whole damn illusion.

Inspired by that old fairy tale we all pretend to remember from childhood, “The Emperor Wears No Clothes” isn’t just some clever metaphor. It’s a scathing folk sermon dressed in mandolin and piano, with lyrics that don’t lecture—they smirk, they prod, they reveal. There’s nothing heavy-handed here, just the weight of honesty hitting you like a gut-check.

You can hear the lineage in the production—thanks to Jon Evans, the same guy who’s worked with Tori Amos and Sarah McLachlan. But don’t expect ethereal or fragile. This is grounded, gritty, a studio cut that still smells like wood floors and worn frets. Fignus’s voice is more storyteller than singer—rough edges, real heart, no filter. He’s not trying to impress. He’s trying to wake you up.

“She wakes up at the morning, picks up her cup of Joe / Talks about the latest, then pretends she doesn’t know.” That’s the opening shot. And you already get it. We’re living in a world where everyone knows, but no one says. And Fignus? He says. In fact, he sings it like a man who’s seen behind the curtain and found it laughable.

The track’s slow-burn groove walks the line between protest and poetry. Lead guitar and mandolin weave like gossip around a campfire, while Gary Urgonski’s spoons add this old-world clatter that makes the whole thing feel part street theater, part séance. It’s got that Ry Cooder soul, that John Prine smirk, and just a little Lou Reed sneer.

What makes the song so damn effective is that it never raises its voice. Instead, it raises its eyebrow. “I can spy with my own eye, there’s rockets rising up into the sky…” Fignus doesn’t tell you what to think—he invites you to remember what it means to think at all.

And that’s the kicker. In a culture obsessed with noise, with algorithms, with polished platitudes and dopamine loops, “The Emperor Wears No Clothes” stops time. It’s a mirror held up to the madness, a folk-rock whisper that cuts louder than any shout.

This isn’t a comeback. Digney Fignus never left. He just waited for the world to get weird enough again to hear him clearly.

And now, finally, everybody knows.

By: Lonnie Nabors

Truth Hurts, and So Does This Groove: Digney Fignus Undresses the Illusion in The Emperor Wears No Clothes

If Americana had a panic attack in the middle of a Kafka novel and still managed to two-step its way through the wreckage, you’d probably hear Digney Fignus’ “The Emperor Wears No Clothes” drifting through the smoke. It’s folk with a razor in its boot. A protest song dressed like a porch jam. A fairy tale that just took off its pants and started yelling at Congress.

And it works. God, it works.

There’s this thing Fignus does—this sleight of hand where he feeds you a spoonful of melody while sneaking a brick through your window. He’s not here to soothe you. He’s here to remind you that the whole damn parade’s naked and everyone’s clapping anyway. He takes Hans Christian Andersen’s fable, swirls it in a cocktail of Eastern Bloc rhythms, banjo-fried folk, and hickory-smoked satire, and drops it down the gullet of 2025 like a truth bomb with a harmonica solo.

The groove is sneaky. It’s toe-tapping without being cheerful, like a funeral march wearing cowboy boots. You’ve got Malcolm Granger’s piano doing this shifty carnival shuffle, Chris Leadbetter picking mandolin like he’s trying to peel paint off a politician’s podium, and somewhere in the back Gary Urgonski’s spoons clack like the bones of forgotten whistleblowers. Fignus’ voice? It’s less croon, more sermon-from-the-scrapyard. Think John Prine if he’d swallowed a typewriter and chased it with cheap whiskey and righteous rage.

Let’s talk lyrics. This ain’t bumper sticker poetry. It’s a Molotov cocktail of verses dressed up in rhyme, exploding just when you start to hum along. “She wishes she could dress it up, but still it’s gonna show / ‘Cause everybody knows, everybody knows…”—and yeah, we do. We’ve seen the emperor. We’ve seen the threads. And Fignus is the guy standing on the corner with a bullhorn and a banjo, telling us we’re not crazy for seeing it too.

There’s a verse where he sings, “I can spy with my own eye, there’s rockets rising up into the sky, why oh why, can’t someone try, before it all explodes…” and it doesn’t just echo your nightmares—it hands them a tambourine and gets them dancing. It’s cynical. It’s urgent. It’s terrifying in its gentleness.

This isn’t just music—it’s medicine for the willfully disillusioned. Fignus isn’t preaching. He’s holding up a mirror. Not some boutique Instagram-ready mirror either. I’m talking the kind you find behind a gas station bathroom door, cracked and stained with the residue of everyone who’s tried to smile through their teeth.

Recorded with Jon Evans at Brick Hill Studio—yeah, the same Jon Evans who polished up Tori Amos and Sarah McLachlan—this track somehow keeps its splinters intact. It’s clean, but not sterile. Precise, but never slick. There’s breath in the room. There’s dust on the amp. It’s alive, and it’s not here to make you comfortable.

Digney Fignus doesn’t need to shout to be heard. “The Emperor Wears No Clothes” slinks up behind you, whispers something you already know in your bones, and then struts off down the road like the ghost of Woody Guthrie carrying a sign that says “I told you so.”

You can dress up denial in silk and sequins. But Fignus rips it all off and leaves it flapping in the breeze.

And yeah… *everybody knows.*

By: Leslie Banks

Read All Press