Article Contributed by Gratefulweb
Published on 2026-08-23
Lyal Strickland has released “Birds,” the second single from his upcoming album, Shooter of Truth, due October 16. The stripped-down duet features San Antonio songwriter Rachel Laven, with Strickland on acoustic guitar and a cello part from Molly Healey of The Ozark Mountain Daredevils.
The new track follows the album’s title song, “Shooter of Truth,” which has already passed 20,000 streams on Spotify and was featured on the Buddy & Jim Show on SiriusXM’s Outlaw Country.
“Birds” was not originally written as a duet, but that changed once Strickland and producer Adam Dawson began working on the song in the studio.
“I didn’t write this as a duet, but in the studio my producer, Adam Dawson, suggested we try it. It turns out I was writing from multiple sides of the situation. Once that decision was made, I immediately thought of bringing in Rachel Laven to sing the female part and she came in and killed it. Birds is about running yourself ragged, chasing something that’s chaotic and destructive, and then building something back from the pieces when you catch it. It’s a song about putting yourself through the ringer because you want the story on the other side.”
Shooter of Truth marks Strickland’s first full-length album in ten years and arrives with the weight of a life fully lived in the years between.
After the death of his father and a string of hard miles on the road in 2016, Strickland went through an emotional breakdown that left him questioning not only his place in music, but his ability to keep writing honestly. In the decade that followed, life did not stand still. He got married. He became the father of two young daughters. He stayed tied to the land and the cattle that have shaped his family’s story for generations. And in one weekend the songs returned.
The breakthrough came during a Southwest Folk Alliance conference, where Strickland wrote a batch of songs with a new kind of clarity: brutally honest, unguarded, and unwilling to dress up the truth. Those songs became the foundation of Shooter of Truth, an album that looks directly at alcohol, depression, old relationships, present love, failure, survival, and the strange grace of still being here.
Across its ten tracks, Shooter of Truth moves between solo acoustic performances (“Another Place And Time” and “Hellbent On A Hearthache”), an acoustic guitar and cello backed duet (“Birds”), a couple irreverent fast paced songs and a collection of mid-tempo tunes rooted in country, folk, and Americana. The record is earnest and raw without being polished smooth. This is the Lyal that hasn’t been captured fully on record before. The musicians on the album all hail from the Ozarks, lending the album a sound that feels tied to place: unpretentious, and lived-in. The sound that results is shaped by the same hills, highways, churches, barrooms, and back roads that run through Strickland’s writing.
The album’s singles trace its emotional range. “Shooter of Truth” sets the tone with a plainspoken reckoning and the hard edge of self-examination. “Birds,” a duet with Rachel Laven, explores the strain of life on the road and the temptation to push past your limits in search of something true. It’s conversation from the edge, where recklessness and revelation can start to look uncomfortably alike. Not originally a duet, when “Birds” called for a complimentary voice, Laven was the first and obvious choice. Her addition to the song brings out an understated tension in the lyrics. “I’m Still Poor” brings Strickland’s hard-earned realism to the front, a song about the sacrifices artists make, the cost of chasing the work, and the long search for the people who understand why you keep doing it anyway.
To make the album happen, Strickland is making big changes on his farm by dwindling his cattle herd down to Herefords, the same breed raised by his grandfather and great-grandfather on his mother’s side. It is both a sacrifice and a promise: Strickland is putting his heart into this album. He’s letting go of one version of the farm in order to carry forward another, while making room for the music that has never quite let him go.
On Shooter of Truth, Strickland sounds like an artist less interested in reinvention than reckoning. The album is the work of a singer-songwriter older now, a husband and father, a farmer still marked by the road, singing with fewer illusions and more at stake. After ten years away from making a full-length record, he has come back with songs that do what the title promises: they aim straight for the truth and do not flinch.
Shooter of Truth Track List:
1. Shooter Of Truth - 4:35
2. Birds - 3:44
3. I’m Still Poor - 4:37
4. Homewrecker - 2:48
5. Before It’s Gone - 5:14
6. Another Place And Time - 3:09
7. Boosters - 3:25
8. Church List - 2:56
9. Gatherin’ Dust - 3:36
10. Hell Bent On A Heartache - 2:59
Full run time: 37 min 5 sec
Shooter of Truth was co-produced by Adam Dawson and Lyal Strickland and recorded, mixed, and mastered by Jeff Smith at Studio 2100.
Musicians:
Lyal Strickland - vocals and guitar
Molly Healey - fiddle and cello
Joe Terry - organ and keyboards
Oran Thornton - electric guitar
Kyle Vance - bass
Nick Smith - drums
Background vocals - Jeff Smith, Dillon Hasten, Damien Thousand
Duet vocals on “Birds” - Rachel Laven
