For more than a decade, fans have been waiting to hear what comes next from Alabama Shakes. Now, the Athens-born band is giving them an answer.

Alabama Shakes will release I Must Be Dreaming, its first album in 11 years, on Aug. 28 through Island Records. The 11-track album reunites singer and guitarist Brittany Howard with bassist Zac Cockrell and guitarist Heath Fogg and follows the band’s return to the stage in 2025.

The announcement comes during a particularly busy chapter for Howard, the Athens native whose unmistakable voice and guitar work have continued to carry Alabama’s musical influence far beyond the state. Earlier this year, Howard took the stage at the Academy Awards as part of a tribute to the music of Sinners, performing alongside artists including Shaboozey, Eric Gales, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Bobby Rush and Alice Smith. Howard also contributed to the film’s soundtrack, writing and performing “Pale, Pale Moon.”

Meanwhile, Alabama Shakes’ return has been met with a response that even Howard did not expect.

“It’s been greater than my greatest expectations,” she told Garden & Gun. “I did not expect people to show up like they have.” She paused. “We don’t take it for granted.”

The band has already offered two glimpses of the new album with “Another Life” and “American Dream,” the latter a protest song that grapples with the state of the world. Now, Alabama Shakes has released the album’s title track, “I Feel Hope Coming.”

The album’s title captures the tension between those two sides of the band’s newest music: the weight of the moment and the possibility that something beautiful can still emerge from it.

“It could be saying, ‘I must be dreaming, because the world is so f—ing crazy right now,’” Howard said in a statement. “But it could also mean, ‘I must be dreaming, because the world is so incredibly beautiful.’ Both those things can be true at once.”

For an Alabama band that began playing together in Athens and went on to become one of the state’s most celebrated musical exports, I Must Be Dreaming represents more than a long-awaited new record. It is a return—and, judging by the band’s reception so far, one that Alabama Shakes’ audience was more than ready to make.

I Must Be Dreaming arrives Aug. 28. “I Feel Hope Coming” is available to stream now, with the album available for preorder through Alabama Shakes’ website.

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