[Cover photo credit to Glenn Ross]
The Lil Smokies are known for their high-energy acoustic music. Since their last album, Tornillo (2020), the band has returned with two new members, bassist Jean Luc Davis and banjo player, Sam Armstrong-Zickefoose, adding to the core trio of dobro player Andy Dunnigan, lead guitarist the Reverend Matthew Rieger, and fiddler Jake Simpson.
To showcase the new sound and quintet lineup, the band will release new album Break of the Tide, available via Americana Vibes on April 4, 2025. Recently, the band have released the second single off of the album, “Sycamore Dreams”, bringing with it positive vibes.
The song’s lyrics “contemplate the mysterious ebbs and flows of life that could leave one to wonder what they could have done differently.”
The Reverend Matthew Rieger says:
I hope that Sycamore Dreams will remind you to be gentle with yourself, grateful for what was, and hopeful for what may come. Sometimes love isn’t enough, but its beauty remains.
Returning to Texas (where they recorded Tornillo), The Lil Smokies cut Break of the Tide at a Dallas-Fort Worth studio with local producer Robert Ellis.
The album title representing, according to Andy Dunnigan:
…a turning point, a pivot… the old world vs. the new world. It’s like a bug set in amber, an artifact from that period of time. We didn’t drown under the tide.
The album finds the band expanding beyond the Bluegrass genre with a set of “more introspective, nuanced” songs which “slow down to reflect the wide-open spaces and natural beauty of the state where they first took shape.”
The band recently announced an extensive national tour to celebrate the new album kicking off with a Colorado run and continuing at key venues across the midwest and East Coast.
| A complete list of tour dates: |
| Apr-3, Frisco, CO, 10 Mile Music Hall |
| Apr-4, Denver, CO, Ogden Theatre |
| Apr-5, Ft Collins, CO, Washington’s |
| Apr-8, Kansas City, MO, Bottleneck |
| Apr-9, Minneapolis, MN, Turf Club |
| Apr-10, Stoughton, WI, Stoughton Opera House |
| Apr-11, Indianapolis, IN, HIFI |
| Apr-12, Evanston, IL, SPACE |
| Apr-15, New York, NY, Mercury Lounge |
| Apr-16, Northampton, MA, Iron Horse |
| Apr-17, Cambridge, MA, The Sinclair |
| Apr-18, Burlington, VT, Higher Ground |
| Apr-19, Portsmouth, NH, 3D Art Space |
| Apr-23, Pittsburgh, PA, Thunderbird |
| Apr-24, Wayne, PA, 118 North |
| Apr-25, Charlottesville, VA, The Southern |
| Apr-26, Washington, DC, Pearl Street Warehouse |
| Apr-27, Wilkesboro, NC, Merlefest |
