Alabama Shakes Return With Another Life, Debut on Island Records

Alabama Shakes have released "Another Life," the band's first new original song in roughly a decade, and their debut single for Island Records. The track, produced by the trio with longtime collaborator Shawn Everett and recorded at Sound Emporium Studios in Nashville, arrives as the group has resumed live activity following a surprise reunion last year and amid a North American touring schedule that picks up this fall.

"When I wrote Another Life, I was thinking about all the lives we carry," singer and guitarist Brittany Howard said in a statement accompanying the release. "This song is about those threads and how they stretch across time and space, connecting every version of who we are. It is about letting them come together, letting them harmonize, and realizing that goodbye is not really goodbye. It is more like I will see you later." The lyrics include a pleading refrain that reviewers have highlighted, and critics have noted Howard's vocals channel classic soul influences while the band moves from atmospheric grooves into an extended psych soul outro.

Alabama Shakes, the trio of Howard, guitarist Heath Fogg and bassist Zac Cockrell, has not issued original studio material...