PREMIERE: Chris Acker Announces New Album, Unveils “Shit Surprise”

Today, New Orleans singer-songwriter Chris Acker has announced his fourth album, Famous Lunch, which is due out October 11 via Gar Hole Records. It’s Acker’s follow-up to his 2021 LP Odd, Ordinary & Otherwise, and it sees the folk troubadour teaming up with his longtime band the Growing Boys (Zach Thomas, Nikolai Shveitser, Dave Hammer, Sam Gelband and Howe Pearson) again. Earlier this year, Acker took a turn at our East Austin Block Party, performing some of his greatest hits, including “Dallas Does Debby,” “Good Kid” and “Gran Turismo.”

The album announcement is accompanied by the release of its lead single, “Shit Surprise,” an immediate standout in Acker’s catalog. Though the title plays into the gnarly humor that often populates Acker’s songwriting, the track is tender and sticky-sweet. “How we’d match our breath in the upstairs room,” he sings, “and we’d hold together ’til I smelled like you.” With Shveitser’s pedal steel and Gelband’s snare drum waltzing behind him, Acker enchants during the “but now it smells like I stepped in it, shit surprise” chorus that, when fused with the band’s backing harmonies, binds the whole song together. Acker, ever a man whose work is aglow with countless juxtapositions, fills a sentence beautifully with lines like “I feel her like a pulse in a cut on my thumb” and “I hear you brushing your tongue.” It’s a synergy hunkered down in delicious harmony. Jaw pops, bread slices and cilantro getting confused with parsley all come into focus, as Acker lets out one final thought: “I thought I’d grow up to love you by now.” “Shit Surprise” is a song of the year contender.

Watch the Cooper Kenward-directed music video for “Shit Surprise” below.