Sarah Shook and the Disarmers Announce New Album, ‘Revelations’

Sarah Shook and the Disarmers have always been about two things: speaking the truth, and doing so loudly. That ethos is on full display in their new album announced today, Revelations.

For Revelations, coming March 29, Shook (who personally goes by River now) took the producer’s chair for the first time to match the sonics to the sentiments in songs that explore their mental health and substance abuse struggles, romantic lessons learned the hard way, and life amid late-stage capitalism.

“A lot of artists are in this industry for fame, recognition, and money but those things don’t mean anything to me,” Shook writes in a press release announcing the album, the band’s fourth. “Songwriting is it for me. It’s the only real healthy coping mechanism I’ve ever had. It’s life-saving, and all of my writing is autobiographical. I write everything based on my observations and experiences, but there was something about Revelations that felt more personal to me. I unlocked this level of honesty with myself and an ability to be more objective about the things I struggle with daily.

“I’m a firm believer that if you are an artist, and you want to make better art, a big part of that isn’t just exercising your musical skills, it’s growing as a human being,” they continue. “So every time I make a record, I want to be able to listen to it and look back on who I was then. I want to see this arc and this evolution. That’s really fucking important to me.”

Revelations, to be released on Abeyance Records and Thirty Tigers, follows Sarah Shook and the Disarmers’ 2022 album Nightroamer (ND review), which landed on No Depression readers’ 50 Favorite Roots Music Albums list that year. Last year also saw the debut of Shook’s more pop-based project, Mightmare, with the album Cruel Liars (ND review).

Along with today’s announcement of Revelations comes the first single, “Backsliders,” a journey back to Shook’s days tending bar at storied Chapel Hill, North Carolina, dive The Cave. As Shook wrote about The Cave in a feature about local venues in No Depression’s Spring 2022 journal, “The Cave has been a safe haven for weirdos, outliers, artists, musicians, and LGBTQ+ people from all walks of life from the day it first opened in 1968.” (Read their full essay in the Spring 2022 journal, available here.)

In the song, they describe the view from behind the bar, and struggling with finding a match and a mismatch all in one person on the other side. “I’m a real piece of shit and you’re a vixen in a dress,” they sing:

Shook still lives in Chapel Hill, but they don’t see much of it these days amid a heavy touring schedule. They have a few dates on the schedule later this month, and then in early 2024, they’ll take Revelations on the road through the South and beyond. Check out the dates here.

Cover image for “Revelations”

Here’s the track list for Revelations:

1. Revelations
2. You Don’t Get to Tell Me
3. Motherfucker
4. Dogbane
5. Nightingale
6. Backsliders
7. Stone Door
8. Jane Doe
9. Give You All My Love
10. Criminal