Zoe Unsworth will release ‘Tell Tale’ on 3rd July 2026, with the track landing as the second single from her upcoming debut EP. It has that bright, upbeat country-pop kick that grabs you quickly, but there is a sharper feeling running underneath it. This is a breakup song that knows exactly when the excuses stopped sounding believable.
That comes through quickly in the writing. Zoe opens with someone swearing they are faithful, then cuts back with ‘I learned from the best / How to lie’, which tells you a lot about the song’s mood straight away. ‘Tell Tale’ is not floating around in confusion. It sounds like the point where the fog clears and the truth starts looking embarrassingly obvious.
Where the country-pop sting really sits
What gives ‘Tell Tale’ its edge is how clearly it pins down the imbalance at the centre of it. Zoe Unsworth is not singing about one huge dramatic collapse. She is singing about somebody who liked being adored more than they liked actually giving anything back. That is why ‘Made me feel special cause it made you feel good’ lands so well. It is blunt, clean and just nasty enough to stick.
There is self-awareness in the song too, which gives it more shape. The frustration is aimed outward, but not only outward. You can feel that horrible realisation that part of the damage came from wanting to believe in a version of someone that never really existed. That keeps ‘Tell Tale’ from feeling like a one-note breakup single and gives it a bit more bite than the average kiss-off track.
Produced by Samuel Capper, the song sounds built for exactly that mix of hurt and lift. Chuck Walton’s pedal steel and Grainne White’s fiddle should give it real country character, which feels important because a track like this needs grit as well as shine. You want the hooks, obviously, but you also want enough texture in the arrangement to stop the emotion from feeling polished smooth.
Zoe suits this sort of song down to the ground. The Wigan-born, Manchester-based singer-songwriter has been building her name through soulful vocals, country storytelling and high-energy live performances, and ‘Tell Tale’ feels like the kind of release that could push that on again. It sounds like exactly the sort of single that can sharpen her identity even further as the EP gets closer.
‘Tell Tale’ Review
I am into this. ‘Tell Tale’ seems to have exactly the right kind of tension running through it, where the story stings but the song still wants to move. That is a great place for country-pop to live. You get the emotional snap of the lyric and the release of a chorus that sounds built to come back louder every time.
The arrangement sounds like a big part of why this should work. Pedal steel and fiddle are not there to dress the song up. They sound like the details that give it its character, stopping it from slipping into anonymous pop with a country accent painted on afterwards. Add that to Zoe’s soulful delivery and the upbeat feel, and ‘Tell Tale’ has every chance of feeling both fresh and familiar in the best way.
Most of all, ‘Tell Tale’ sounds like it has personality. There is hurt in it, a bit of venom, a lot of hook, and just enough self-awareness to keep it from flattening out. That is a strong mix for country-pop. For me, this sounds like the kind of single that can win people over very quickly and make the EP behind it feel even more worth keeping an eye on.
You can pre-save ‘Tell Tale’ here, follow Zoe Unsworth on Instagram, and read more TuneFountain coverage of Zoe Unsworth here.
