Sunny War has signed to New West Records and is set to release her label debut Anarchist Gospel on February 3, 2023. The 14-song set was produced by Andrija Tokic (Alabama Shakes, Hurray for the Riff Raff) and features appearances by Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Allison Russell, David Rawlings, Jack Lawrence of the Raconteurs, Micah Nelson, John James Tourville of The Deslondes, Kyshona Armstrong, Dennis Crouch, The School Zone Children’s Choir, and more.
With Anarchist Gospel, Sunny has crafted an eclectic set of songs that draw on a range of ideas and styles: ecstatic gospel, dusty country blues, thoughtful folk, rip-roaring rock and roll, even avant garde studio experiments. She melds them together into a powerful statement of survival, revealing a probing songwriter who indulges no comforting platitudes.
“I feel like there are two sides of me,” says the singer-songwriter and guitar virtuoso. “One of them is very self-destructive, and the other is trying to work with that other half to keep things balanced.” That’s the central conflict on Anarchist Gospel, which documents a time when it looked like the self-destructive side might win out. Sunny says, “Everybody is a beast just trying their hardest to be good. That’s what it is to be human. You’re not really good or bad. You’re just trying to stay in the middle of those two things all the time, and you’re probably doing a shitty job of it. That’s ok, because we’re all just monsters.”
Sunny also releases the first single ‘No Reason.’ She says the song “is about the internal struggle that all people face just trying to be the best version of themselves. And the guilt that you feel when you’re not being the best version of yourself.” The single is accompanied by a video directed by Joshua Britt & Neilson Hubbard for Neighborhoods Apart.
Anarchist Gospel:
- Love’s Death Bed
- No Reason
- Shelter And Storm
- I Got No Fight
- Swear To Gawd
- Earth
- New Day
- Baby Bitch
- His Love
- Hopeless
- Higher
- Test Dummy
- Sweet Nothing
- Whole
