The celebrated trio is working on their first album since 2015 and has spent much of the summer on a reunion tour
After ten years, Alabama Shakes are back with a new song, “Another Life.”
Despite the decade-long hiatus, the track shows the celebrated trio hasn’t lost their knack for heady throwback soul. “Another Life” begins with an atmospheric groove as Brittany Howard pleads for second chances: “Can we try in another life?/I won’t make you cry again.” For the song’s second half, Alabama Shakes follow a thumping bridge into an extended psych-soul outro, Howard’s voice and the guitars wailing in the same anguished register.
In a statement, Howard said she wrote “Another Life” while “thinking about all the lives we carry,” adding: “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. 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” (via Pitchfork).
Howard and her Alabama Shakes bandmates, guitarist Heath Fogg and bassist Zac Cockrell, first teased their reunion with a surprise set at a benefit show in Tuscaloosa last December (this was their first gig together since 2017). Not long after, the group confirmed a 2025 North American tour, which kicked off in July and is set to wrap late next month.
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At the time the tour was announced, Howard also confirmed that Alabama Shakes had been working on new music with longtime collaborator and producer Shawn Everett. The band hasn’t shared any album details yet, but it will be their first since 2015’s Grammy-winning Sound & Color.
During Alabama Shakes’ hiatus, Howard put out two celebrated solo albums of her own, 2019’s Jaime, and last year’s What Now.