Sarah Shook & the Disarmers Announce Revelations: New Album About Fierce Autonomy, Fighting For Queer Love & Finding Beauty

Revelations Cover Art

Today, with the announcement of their most assured album to date, Sarah Shook & the Disarmers enter a new peak in their potent and prolific streak. Out March 29th on Abeyance Records and Thirty Tigers, Revelations is a collection of 10 lived-in songs and salt-of-the-earth stories, self-produced by bandleader River Shook (they/them) for the very first time. Across the record, they channel the commanding energy and dogged spirit of their ferocious live shows into pointed reflections on class consciousness, navigating mental health under the confines of capitalism, celebrating gay love and complicated feelings, and working through lifelong struggles of substance abuse and unhealthy relationships. With River Shook at the helm, Revelations captures the band’s collision of punk rock truth-telling and outlaw country twang like no one else can, and the result feels fully themselves: raw and unfiltered, raucous and resilient, blunt and biting, but also tender and empathetic, never letting go of their immense, unwavering integrity.

“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.”

-River Shook

Alongside the news of Revelations, Sarah Shook & the Disarmers have shared lead single “Backsliders,” a song that brings River Shook back to their days tending bar in a Chapel Hill dive called The Cave. Combining self-deprecating and longing lyrics with a deceptively buoyant arrangement, “Backsliders” illustrates not only the special and sometimes tumultuous romantic entanglements experienced by service workers, but also how easy it is to fall into bad habits when dealing with any type of loss.

Pre-order Revelations, and listen to “Backsliders”:

https://orcd.co/backsliders

Revelations follows Sarah Shook & the Disarmers’ 2022 release of Nightroamer, which earned praise from NPR Weekend Edition, Rolling Stone and many more, as well as the 2022 debut of River Shook’s synth-rock solo project, Mightmare. Released via Kill Rock Stars, Mightmare’s inaugural Cruel Liars LP entered new sonic territory while “retaining their rough hew and stark, straightforward lyricism” (The New York Times).

Though River Shook remains based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, they live hundreds of dates a year on the road, making them an expert collector of human experiences and the ways in which people are getting by, keeping on and going through many of the same things together. As Shook continues to adjust to their songwriting process as a recently sober person, they showcase a journey of growth and self-discovery across Revelations. Album standouts like the title track “Revelations” offer galvanizing, relatable takes on depression, while “Motherfucker” delivers a cathartic kiss-off to villainous men, and “Criminal” defies the social taboo of queerness with a portrayal of unabashed desire between gay lovers.

Beginning next month, Sarah Shook & the Disarmers will begin performing the music of Revelations across the country, with a winter and spring tour spanning dozens of dates. Stops include hometown shows in North Carolina, a return to Nashville, the first of many festival stops and more that has just been announced today. See the full list below, and find tickets at disarmers.com/tour, on-sale at 10am EST today, December 8th.

River Shook by Jillian Clark