#river shook

[dustedmagazine]

Sarah Shook and the Disarmers — Revelations (Abeyance/Thirty Tigers)

Photo by Brett Villena

“I built my life on the edge of a knife when nobody believed that I could,” rasps River Shook, the tough but tender leader of this kicking cowpunk band. The song is “You Don’t Get to Tell Me How to Feel,” a boot-stomping statement of purpose, as the guitars flare,  the drums bolt upright like a scared horse, and Shook makes the case for constructing their own narrative in no uncertain terms. 

Shook came of age in Bible belt America, forbidden as a child from any contact with secular music.  Still these things have a way of back-ending.  The artist learned the piano, then the guitar, then formed a series of bands under their birthname Sarah Shook; they switched to River a few years ago as a personal identifier but continue to record under the old name.  Their music, however, remains sharp and unsentimental, punk in energy, country in its twang and sway.  Move over Beyoncé, you’re not the only one pushing out the boundaries of what Americana can represent. 

And so, Shook delivers gender inclusive busted romances in old-school juke joint style. Pedal steel flies through the jangling twang of “Backsliders” while an in-the-pocket country band keeps two-stepping time.  There’s a cheating partner and a wounded one, just like in all the old songs, but the trick is neither one is a dude.  “I’m a real piece of shit and you’re a vixen in a dress/I thought we was moving on/I was wrong I guess,” Shook cracks, out of the corner of their mouth, like Johnny Cash but different. 

The very real pleasure of this collection of songs comes in how the love of tradition collides with raucous rule-breaking energy.  You’ve got your outlaw country, sure, but did any of those guys write a song called “Motherfucker” and carry it off?  Shook does.   

Not every song stomps.  Some are plaintive and yearning, like the lovely “Jane Doe,” others full of anthemic slow-rocking swirl like “Nightingale.”  But all insist on direct emotional engagement and brutal honesty and acceptance of a very specific point of view.  River Shook is definitely not your grandma’s idea of a country powerhouse, but they are one all the same.   

Jennifer Kelly

[foolsnonsense]

why do the gays want taylor swift so badly we already have a they/them with a mullet swilling whiskey and singing about how a cowboy stole their girl

[eightsyllabledelay]

saw Sarah Shook and the Disarmers today and they charmed the absolute pants off of me

[sinceileftyoublog]

Sarah Shook & The Disarmers Live Preview: 8/15, Robert's Westside, Forest Park

Photo by Jillian Clark

BY JORDAN MAINZER

For Sarah Shook & The Disarmers, Revelations (Abeyance) is, as its title suggests, an album about clarity. Though River Shook had publicly come out as nonbinary before the release of 2022's Nightroamer, their fourth album with longtime band The Disarmers is their first wholly born out of two other weights off their chest: Shook's journey to sobriety and dealing with diagnoses of ADHD and borderline autism spectrum disorder. The output is not necessarily an album about any of that as it is Shook's most empathetic record to date, a result of exercises in songwriting as the means to embrace oneself and others.

Revelations succeeds because its exclaims are simple, as direct as, "We don't need no god to feed each other good" on country rocker "You Don't Get To Tell Me", an argument for each life's inherent value. Sure, there's bad in Shook's world, from the ex who'll be "six circles deeper" in hell than them, or the domestic abuser on "Jane Doe", but Shook spends most of their time focusing on the person on the other end, overcoming despite it all. The haze of Blake Tallent's guitar and thuds of Jack Foster's toms emulate the "black cloud following me around" on the title track, the heavy head of clinical depression in a world subsumed by religion and capitalism. Nevertheless, Shook persists: "I'm done listenin' when the old guard tells me what my word is worth." "I built my life on the edge of a knife when nobody believed that I could," they sing on "You Don't Get To Tell Me".

Further, on "Dogbane", Shook posits that there is growth in the burning. Over a rollicking beat and sprinkled guitars, they sing, "Well it's lookin' like the end of days / If it ain't underwater, it's ablaze / And we got hope and heartache in each gaze." They look back at times of thriving in, or despite, chaos, hooking up on "Backsliders", leaving their ex on "Motherfucker". "When I die and split hell wide, gonna be some sight to see," Shook claims on the latter. Acoustic guitars and Nick Larimore's pedal steel complement Shook's nasal twang that momentarily becomes a yodel when they sing, "Sick to death of you," the very showy moment they promise in the song. Shook's always been an expert presenter of the high and lonesome in classic country, whether through their vocal performance or the versatility and expansiveness of The Disarmers. Revelations is their first album on which the very existence of its songs is a paean to survival.

Sarah Shook & The Disarmers headline Robert's Westside tomorrow night. Local singer-songwriter and Sad Cowgirl of Chicago, Reilly Downes & The Acid Cowboys open. Doors open at 6:30 PM, Downes goes on at 8, and Shook goes on at 9. General admission tickets still available at time of publication.