Be Real With Me: A New Album from Chatham Rabbits

North Carolina indie folk duo Sarah and Austin McCombie drop a new EP this month, arguably their most personal and evolved music to date.
by Josh Klahre

Beloved local roots/Americana band Chatham Rabbits will drop their fourth LP, Be Real With Me,
on Valentine’s Day. Two years ago, the married duo and core of the band, Sarah and Austin Mc-
Combie, moved from Bynum to Siler City to live on a big plot of land (with a small farmhouse) that had been in Sarah’s family since the 1700s. There, they laid down a record and “gave themselves some time to really do everything they wanted with it,” says Austin.

In a first for the band, Austin acted as a co-producer on the album. That level of involvement, he says, gave them more room to be “vulnerable” and to “give listeners a window into who [they] are as real people,” he says. Lyrically, the songs are raw and personal.

On “Collateral Damage” Sarah divulges, I want my freedom / And I want a baby, / it’s all been coming to me lately, / the time I have for it is fading / I know I’ve been acting shady. In “Did I Really Know Him?” Austin contemplates his struggles with imposter syndrome and his future. Perhaps painfully personal on paper, hearing the band’s authentic and earnest delivery of the material leaves you with less cringe and more kinship. You’re rooting for them to sort it out and find their equilibrium.

Sonically, Be Real With Me offers the listener a decidedly more poppy sound than their previous records, with the addition of drum machines and synth pads as percussive elements. And there’s a bit more pedal-steel guitar in the mix, too. Chatham Rabbits fans ought not fret, though; this record doesn’t feel like a diversion, but more of a progression. Says Austin: “the foundational components of our music are still there, we’ve just added to it.” As the two move from carefree coupledom into the complications of (slightly) older age, it seems about right.

This article originally appeared in the February 2025 issue of WALTER magazine.