Thank goodness we didn’t have to wait another life for Alabama Shakes to reunite. Today, the band shared the new single “Another Life,” their first new music in a full decade—since 2015’s Sound & Color, to be more precise. But you wouldn’t know it from a first listen. The new track has a comfortable, lived in quality to it; it doesn’t seem to have taken Brittany Howard, Heath Fogg, and Zac Cockrell too long to re-discover their groove.
Alabama Shakes essentially went on hiatus eight years ago, after releasing their last piece of music, a cover of Memphis Minnie’s “Killer Diller,” in 2017. Howard has gone on to a successful, Grammy-winning solo career in the years since.
“When I wrote ‘Another Life,’ I was thinking about all the lives we carry. The ones we’re living right now, the ones that slipped away because of different choices, the what ifs, the what wasn’t meant to be, the goodbyes, and the chance encounters that feel divine,” Howard said in a statement about the song, per Pitchfork. “This song is about those threads and how they stretch across time and space, connecting every version of who we are. It’s about letting them come together, letting them harmonize, and realizing that goodbye isn’t really goodbye. It’s more like I’ll see you later. A collective story that never stops unfolding. I’m glad we opened this door into this reality of us making music together again.”
Alabama Shakes first reunited late last year during a surprise set in Tuscaloosa. The band is currently on tour and has a brand new album in the works.
