A few things for the many who love Sarah Shook & The Disarmers…Number one, get in line. Number two, relax. They didn’t break up; they’ve got tour dates starting up again in late January. Number three, and most importantly, you might’ve slept on Shook’s still-sprouting solo project, Mightmare.

In another victory for the queer music conquest, Mightmare puts Shook’s non-traditional identity front and center. As such, Mightmare’s lyrical themes fearlessly tackle accessibility, mental health, societal plagues, and more across a collective unconsciousness of effects-drenched guitar, hard-processed percussion, and Shook’s signature breathy vocal twang.

As their first foray into self-engineering and producing, Shook shared Mightmare’s debut LP Cruel Liars back in mid-October. The candor and comprehensiveness of this 8-track merit an uninterrupted listen in full, no doubt. But if you’re getting a little stir crazy in 2022’s last month and a half (perhaps trying to wrap up a bunch of projects), let Cruel Liars‘ title track put things back into perspective. Penned during a pinnacle of pandemic mania, “Cruel Liars” flips the archetype’s script into a piece of protective, realistic-optimistic encouragement, not to mention a total earworm.