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SARAH SHOOK & THE DISARMERS : SIDELONG
- Keep The Home Fires Burnin'
- The Nail
- Heal Me
- Sidelong
- No Name
- Dwight Yoakam
- Misery Without Company
- Solitary Confinement
- Nothin' Feels Right But Doin' Wrong
- Fuck Up
- Make It Up To Mama
- Road That Leads To You
Label : Bloodshot Records
Release Date : April 28, 2017
Length : 37:37
Review (AllMusic) : An exceptional traditional Country/Americana album. It's jam packed with heartache, especially the painfully real "Dwight Yoakam" (which would make a great breakup song). It's full of hope too with songs like the lead off "Keep the Home Fire's Burnin'". Sarah Shook's plaintive voice has just the right amount of backwoods and whiskey sound and the band is exceptional. It's almost a throwback to the kind of music that made country great in the first place, the music of The Carter Family and early Loretta Lynn. At a time when Country Music is dominated by what used to be Southern Rock and cliche's about pickup trucks, Sidelong is a breath of fresh country air that fills the soul and the heart.
Review (PopMatters) : In the black and white portrait on the cover of Sidelong, the debut album from Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, the bandleader comes across as part Walker Evans dust bowl waif and part troubled teen from a Scared Straight documentary. There’s vulnerability amidst the smoke and her aggressive expression, but not one that conveys weakness. Rather, one senses deep feeling beneath Shook’s stone-cold demeanor. And passion. That depth of passion saturates this excellent album from start to finish. Shook comes on like a Kitty Wells from the wrong side of the tracks, or the right one as Shook might declare without apology, at least the more interesting side. She sings honky-tonk fables, like Wells, but unlike her polite forebear, she delivers her songs with the brass of someone who has lived the lines she sings. That’s not to mistake the singer for the song, but it’s a rare vocalist that sings with such conviction and hits so hard on the first impression. Sarah Shook and the Disarmers are a rare and wonderful thing, and Sidelong could be a promise of even better things to come. Shook is a marvel at writing the kind of classic country one-liners that have inspired generations to cry into their beers or kick back from the bar looking for trouble. In “Nail”, she follows a catalog of complaints with the line “I can’t decide which one of us will be the nail in this here coffin.” Of another lover, she sings “Sure wish I could forgive you as quickly as it seems you can forget me.” Alcohol figures prominently in her chosen imagery. “Drinkin’ water tonight ‘cause I drank all the whiskey this morning,” she offers in “Dwight Yoakum” while “Heal Me” features her quavering voice delivering the lines “There’s a hole in my heart ain’t nothin’ here can fill / but I sure keep hopin’ the whiskey will.” Her voice throughout the album is equal parts yearning and pissed, evoking a mournful sense for loves lost amidst a stubborn self-defense, or, maybe, self-defiance. The character she creates through her voice in these songs is proud and wounded with nothing to apologize for. In perhaps the best line on an album full of great ones, she sings, “God don’t make mistakes, He just makes fuck-ups.” It’s a badge proudly worn. If any sense of vulnerability shows through, it’s a closely guarded one, as on the title track where Shook sings “I’d rather die all alone than settle for a liar / If I let myself take a chance on you and step out on the wire, / I’ll be steppin’ sidelong.” She sings in a voice that resonates growing up along dusty roads and seeing a bit too much too young. Hers is not a gun in the purse persona; it’s a knife in the boot. She’ll draw you into her songs’ scenarios like that cool friend who has done all the things your parents warned you not to do, telling stories of late-night bedlam and pocket drama. These endearing songs of wounded hearts and messy problems are all laid out on a solid, unmade bed of sound provided by the Disarmers. Eric Peterson plays twang and burn guitars around which Phil Sullivan’s lap steel weaves like barbed wire. Along with John Howie Jr.’s galloping half-time beats and Jason Hendrick’s stand-up bass, they amplify the mood of the moment, be it anger, pain, or ponderousness over mistakes made or about to be made. Shook released Sidelong independently in 2015 to rave reviews in her home state of North Carolina. Bloodshot Records is making this debut available nationally, with a second album already in the can. After ten years of making music, Shook is deservedly in line to become one of Americana’s next big players.
Review (Saving Country Music) : Sometimes it takes a bad seed to make good country music. That’s just the way it is. Just how bad Sarah Shook is probably depends on your perspective, but she was born into a good Christian home and raised in a wholesome manner that taught her to do everything in virtually the exact opposite way she eventually did it. Home schooled and only exposed to worship music at an early age, Sarah rebelled when she got the chance and her first band was named “Sarah Shook & The Devil.” Sorry mom and dad, but there was something inside Sarah that had to come out, and though this isn’t devil music by any stretch, it’s certainly not scriptures. Who knows what whims govern the exiled ghost of authentic country as it scans the fruited plain looking for souls to possess? But it found Sarah Shook in North Carolina, and her destiny was inescapable. She opens her mouth and a ghostly, smoky yodel is emitted carrying the weight of a thousand troubled and worried spirits crying out in tormented moans about heartache, trouble, and the resignation to never living up to the expectations of yourself and others. Sidelong may find itself in a dark and troubled place much of the time, but it’s good old country music at its heart. You know, country music? That stuff they used to make before Music Row lost its everloving mind? Music that said something, and conveyed a feeling that bred a sense of commiseration and shared grief with the audience resulting in a strange healing? Yeah, that stuff. Twangy, aching, and true—that’s what you find on Sidelong in ample portions, and not cut with “sensibilities” or contemporized for the modern ear. Helping Sarah along the way are The Disarmers, which have a bit of an interesting story themselves. Guitarist Eric Peterson is a holdover from Sarah’s previous band, and the pile driver to getting this album recorded and out to the world. Then behind the drum kit is none other than throwback country artist John Howie Jr., formerly the frontman of the Two Dollar Pistols, and an accomplished solo singer and songwriter himself. Jason Hendrick stands behind the bass fiddle, and together they fool everyone into thinking they know what they’re doing by executing tight and authentic arrangements to Sarah Shook’s original compositions. Sidelong has some really serious haymakers on it folks. The first song “Keep The Home Fires Burnin'” immediately lets you know that the spirit of this album is one of uncompromising country leanings, and the attention to melody paid by guitarist Eric Peterson and embodied in the arrangement make this an excellent song to start an album with. Then the next song in called “The Nail” let’s you know this will be an album with some piss and attitude on it, so be forewarned. sarah-shook-disarmers-sidelongThe title track “Sidelong” is arguably the album’s best with such incredible heart-wrenching emotion strained out through Sarah’s broken yodel. Not since Dolores O’Riordan’s early Cranberries recordings have we heard a female yodel so lonesome, yet so rising in spirit. Sarah Shook resides in a slightly lower register for you average female voice, so she’s able to go to a falsetto without sounding like a screech, and her voice fails her at the most opportune times to communicate tormented emotion, similar to Emmylou Harris. And the way The Disarmers understand how to interpret “Sidelong” and fade out the ending is deserving of bravos. The song most likely to get people’s attention is “Fuck Up” co-written with John Howie. Even if you want to hate this song, with lines like “God never makes mistakes, he just makes fuck ups,” you just can’t. Sidelong also has a couple of tracks that sound like less than 100% effort, and even though if you listen to the message of the other songs you may feel this is to be expected, with some of the greatness captured here, there’s an elevation in expectations. “Misery Without Company” and “Solitary Confinement” could have used a little more work, and in moments slightly expose what is the best part about this album: Sarah’s voice and songwriting.What Sarah’s doing vocally is spectacular, but she still has to be careful of staying within her true voice instead of a voice she feels may fit a particular song. You hear some similarities to Lydia Loveless with Sarah, and seeing how the subject matter is similar in spots, comparisons are probably not unfair, though Sarah’s singing feels more natural . . . most of the time. The strong stuff on Sidelong is quite strong, and is deserved of high praise and deep consideration. Though it may seem ticky tack, I’m pulling back from the top grade of “Two Guns Way Up” for some slightly weaker tracks. But all told, Sidelong touches on something welcome to the country music ear, and makes for one excellent and compelling listen.
Review (New Noise Magazine) : Country doesn’t really sound like country anymore. What’s most recognizable as ‘country’ these days are radio-ready power ballads that may have a twangy guitar or vocal, but with none of the grit and all of the melodrama. It takes work to find music that’s rugged and outlaw-ish, sounding like it’s been workshopped on the road in the back of clubs across the South over a bottle of whiskey. Luckily with Sidelong, the debut album from Sarah Shook & the Disarmers, that sound is extant and very much alive. The North Carolina natives have been together in some form or another since 2013, and their debut is 12 tracks of something that just feels country. This is apparent from the opening track, “Keep The Home Fires Burnin’,” a barroom raver propelled by Shook’s Dylan-in-Greenwich delivery crossed with a voice that resembles the power and command of Patti Smith. It’s quickly followed by the “The Nail,” which Shook details what sounds like a disintegrating relationship. It’s put down after put down leading into the chorus: “I can’t decide which one of us will be the nail in this here coffin.” It’s a song that feels a little unserious, complete with an over-the-top guitar solo. Sidelong is full of great moments that seem to defy genre, such as the album’s title track. It’s beautiful ballad full of sinewy lead electric and slide guitars, and feels like more of a reflection than making a statement. The poignancy is clear in the lines: “I don’t need anyone to set my world on fire/I’d rather die all alone than settle for a liar.” Those are lines that anyone who has ever been in love and been disappointed can relate to. That is the hallmark of a simply great sad song. It is a moment where both Shook and the band truly sparkle. The austerity in songs like “No Name” is the kind that wouldn’t be out of place on an American Recordings release, while “Fuck Up,” is about someone who “never makes mistakes, just fuck ups,” a mid-tempo anthem that is tailor-made for club sing-a-longs. On that same front “Misery Without Company,” a song about sobering up features some great guitar interplay, sounds like it would fit great in the middle of a live set. What’s special about Sidelong and Sarah Shook & the Disarmers is that they’re a band without pretense. These are songs that are built to last, by a band completely confident in their ability. Shook’s voice is the kind that doesn’t exist anywhere else, and within a few years’ time if she’s not in demand to guest on songs by her contemporaries it will be a shame. Both her and the Disarmers are a group that have already come into their own. From here, their possibilities as a band are limitless.