Hannah Cole – Switchbacks
Nashville-based artist Hannah Cole announces her debut album, Switchbacks, out September 4th via Tight Knit, and a midwest / east coast tour. In conjunction, she releases the infectious lead single/video, “MMA.”
Cole began writing songs and singing at six years old, despite the fact that there wasn’t much of a music scene in her hometown of Covington, Louisiana. After moving to Nashville in 2019 for school, she was exposed to new sounds and possibilities – and given the permission to dream big. Like her local music kin Bully and Soccer Mommy, Cole found a way to merge a taste for her heavier sounds with a studied sense of songwriting craftsmanship, juxtaposing the sting of distorted guitar with cool, honey-sweet vocals and punchy melodic hooks.
Switchbacks, the follow-up to two EPs Glisten (2024) and Big Bite (2023), is a marked step in Cole’s development, showcasing the unique blend of style and technique that drew the attention of new independent label Tight Knit Records. Cole and her longtime collaborator and partner Josef Kuhn recorded the album in their home studio between 2024 and 2025, playing nearly every instrument themselves. Aided by mixer Sonny Diperri (American Football, Wisp, Julie), the album features a much wider and denser sonic palette than Cole’s previous releases, with massive, cathartic splashes of sound that were constructed with the live show in mind.
On the title track, Cole is winding home through the Blue Ridge mountains, “looking at the sunset through the bugs on the windshield.” She’s determined to see the beauty beyond what obscures the view – the painted sky beyond the splatter of insects, the open vista beyond the twisting road. We can’t know what’s ahead for us, she says, but you should honk your horn to tell the world you’re coming, and otherwise just enjoy the ride. It’s this image that underpins the heavy-hitting Switchbacks, a commentary on the pursuit of success and how to protect the pure joy and love that lives at our core. Across ten tracks that meld shoegaze and alternative rock with infectious pop melodies and strains of 90s nostalgia, Cole sends her lush sound into the blind curve and makes her presence known.
Lead single “MMA” is a razor-sharp take on the gamble of success, exploring the ugly side of the music industry through the image of Las Vegas: the so-called fight capital of the world, a rich and glamorous city surrounded by a void of sand. The song features huge dynamic shifts, with moments of pause in the wall of sound in which to catch your breath, as if emerging from the heat of the desert, blinking your eyes as the illusion falls away. After reading Joan Didion’s Play It As It Lays, in which Didion explores the scummy underbelly of 1970s Hollywood, Cole began thinking about another entertainment epicenter: her adopted city, often referred to as “Nashvegas.” Reflecting on her experience in the industry, she says, “I’ve taught myself how to live outside of reality, how to put on a show.”
Switchbacks is not only a finely-crafted debut album but also a deeply human artifact, tracing an arc that blazes like a comet to the height of ambition and then leaves you in the shimmer of self-acceptance and contentment.“Success is a moment that comes and goes,” she concludes, “but I think the joy and experience that comes with making music is something I can take with me forever.”
In support of the album, Cole will play headlining shows this fall. A full list of dates can be found below and tickets go on sale this Friday at 10am local time.
Hannah Cole Tour Dates
Fri. Aug. 21 – Nashville, TN @ The Blue Room *
Thu. Sept. 24 – Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Tavern ^
Fri. Sept. 25 – Chicago, IL @ Subterranean Downstairs ^
Tue. Sept. 29 – Boston, MA @ Warehouse XI ^
Wed. Sept. 30 – New York, NY @ Nightclub 101 ^
Thu. Oct. 1 – Washington, DC @ Pearl Street $
Fri. Oct. 2 – Durham, NC @ The Pinhook $
Sun. Oct. 4 – Atlanta, GA @ Aisle 5 $
*= w/ Finger Foods ^= w/ Evil Adeline $=w/ Maddie FM
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