Sarah Shook & The Disarmers will be releasing their fourth album, ‘Revelations’ on March 29th via Thirty Tigers. The band’s last album, ‘Nightroamer’, came out in 2022 followed later the same year by frontperson River Shook’s side project Mightmare’s ‘Cruel Liars’.
‘Revelations’ sees Shook taking a more confident and prominent stance on the issues they have faced throughout their life including a battle with the bottle – Shook is now proudly sober having struggled with alcohol for several years.
The album’s tagline: “Ten resilient songs about self-discovery and fierce autonomy, cultivating compassion and denouncing patriarchs, fighting for queer love and finding beauty at the end of the world” sums it up very well. Anyone who caught Shook and the Disarmers on their European tour last autumn, when some of the songs on ‘Revelations’ were previewed, will recognise the qualities of Shook and the joyful defiance of the band’s music.
The first single ‘Backsliders’ with its insistent rhythm and leisurely pedal steel harks back to Shook’s days bartending and the difficulties making relationships and resisting temptation, especially at times of emotional turmoil. Anyone interested in Shook’s back story could do worse than check out the ‘What It Takes’ DVD.
Shook says of ‘Revelations’: “A lot of artists are in this industry for fame, recognition, and money but those things don’t mean anything to me. 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. 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.”
Latest single ‘Motherfucker’ reaches back into Shook’s painful back story but from the perspective of today’s artist recognising, with justified anger, what was happening. Accompanied by an upbeat tune and a classic Disarmers performance, it’s a powerful statement.
The album is available for pre-order and pre-save through this link.
