The 'Church Girl' is an 'Honest Woman': Carly Pearce gets bold on album #5

Carly Pearce's 'Honest Woman' (BBR Music Group/BMG Nashville)

Carly Pearce's pivotal 2021 album, 29: Written in Stone, painted an unflinching picture of a young woman in the aftermath of a very public divorce from fellow star Michael Ray.

On 2024's hummingbird, she began to spread her wings, somewhere between the breakup angst of "We Don't Fight Anymore" and the revenge anthem "Truck on Fire."

Now, as her fifth album waits for it Aug. 28 release, its cover shows her confidently smiling over her shoulder as she forges ahead, a wide, sunny field calling in the distance.

This time, she's making bold statements with songs like the already-released "Church Girl," which dares to challenge some long held religious norms. It ignited such a lively discourse on her socials, Carly herself stepped in to turn down the temperature.

"I named it Honest Woman," she says of the record, "because, first of all, being a woman is something to be celebrated, and life experience comes with age. And I'm tired of living in a society where I shouldn't say that I'm 36 years old, because I'm in the prime of my life."

"And it's funny that you would say 'bold,'" she reacts to the "Church Girl" characterization, "because with this album, when I went in to write it and pick songs for it, it was like 'I want to be bold and I want show other things that mean something to me and things that I want to stand on unapologetically in the way that my heroes did.'"

Immediately after its release, Carly's taking the album to her fans, performing two shows each in seven major cities. Honest Woman: Up Close kicks off Sept. 10 in Detroit and wraps Oct. 22 in New York City.

Tickets are on sale now.