Written entirely by Katie Brooke and produced with long-time collaborator Rusty Crook in Tamworth, Relentless blends traditional country roots with raw, reflective storytelling. “I started writing this album three years ago, around the same time I became a mother and my life shifted to a whole new realm,” Brooke shares. “In that time, I became the artist I’ve always hoped to be... It’s the most true I’ve ever felt.”

The bold title track channels burnout into strength, while the foot-stomping Ain’t No 9 to 5 salutes the work ethic Brooke inherited from her family. Vulnerability shines in standout track A Little Dirt, which hit #2 on Play MPE’s country charts, and emotional depth continues in Someone’s Enemy and Higher Ground, a tribute to her hometown and the 2022 floods.

“I experienced a major flood, became a first-time mum, faced some tough failures, and still kept pushing forward. This album is about that journey. It's about becoming.”

To celebrate her sophomore album being released Brooke has written Countrytown a track by track describing each song in her own words.

Katie Brooke Relentless Track by Track:

1. Relentless:  

Relentless was written during a challenging phase in my career. I was feeling exhausted and  burnt out, my wheels were spinning, the work was relentless, I felt like the harder I tried the  more failure I was experiencing. This wasn’t the first time, over many years of chasing this  dream, this feeling was a frequent and unwelcome visitor. This time, I’d experienced a failure  that felt unbearable and I found myself driving home from Brisbane in tears entertaining the  thought of throwing it all in. So when I got home, I sat myself down and threw all of those  feelings into a song. The songs for my album had all been written at this point, but this song  came in like a force I couldn’t ignore. It had something to prove – just like the merciless  horse. So not only was it destined to be my next next single, but it also won title track of the  entire album. Because this song took the defeat and spun it into creativity. This song asked  the question – “what will you do about it?” And I got my answer. We dig our heels in, we  pick up the reins and we ride on. This song was written in only a short couple of hours and I  instantly became obsessed with it, I think the reason behind that is because it motivates me  and reminds me why I do what I do regardless of outcomes. I’m just here to write impactful,  authentic music.  

2. Haunted or Holy:  

I’m partial to a haunting, whimsical sounding song. I had this title written down for a long  time, I loved the sound of it but struggled with the concept. A few months later the chorus  lines hit me from nowhere - “is this ground haunted or holy? It shook me, it stole me”. I was  able to go into a flow state and get deeply creative with this one. It’s one of those “open to  interpretation” songs. It leaves question marks, allows people to read between the lines and  provokes thought, some of my favourite songs demonstrate this.  

3. Too Far Down:  

Still one of my favourite songs to this day. Life was different after I wrote this song. I found  myself trusting my songwriting process more and really believing in my ability as an artist. If I  ever questioned myself, I was reminded that if this song was possible, I can achieve anything.  My producer, Rusty Crook felt the same about it, then after it was released, radio and the  charts also agreed and it’s still one of my highest streamed songs to this day. This song is about standing true to your values, not selling your soul for cheap fame, not buying into  comparison, not submitting to the trends and following the crowd. It’s about authenticity,  resilience and believing in yourself and that is everything to me and perhaps why it  resonates so deeply.  

4. You Can Always Come Home:  

I badly wanted this album to hold a song for my daughter Faith. I tried for a long time to  write something but I struggled. It took me about two years and all along I was just over  complicating things. I came back to the simplicity of home. You Can Always Come Home.  Then the chorus came to me straight away. I’ve always been so fortunate to have a solid  home base. I moved out at 18 and spent over a decade living away, but no matter what happened in my life, I could always find solace in my home, my family. I could come back,  recharge, then start again. And I did, over and over. And my daughter will no doubt do the  same one day, and when the time comes I want her to lean on this song as a reminder that  we’re always here for her.  

5. Can’t Fake That:  

Can’t Fake That is a celebratory song dedicated to cowgirls and country women everywhere  who have authentically chosen this lifestyle regardless of it being a current trend. Growing  up, I wanted to be like Calamity Jane or Annie Oakley, I loved their outlaw attitude and the  way they fiercely inspired countless women to blaze their own trails and I see that same  quality in the women I share my life with. Compared to the majority of my songs that often  hold a strong emotional tone, this one was written with a light-heartedness, and even a  tongue in cheek insincerity of sorts through the second verse. It’s been validating to discover  as a mostly solo-writer, just how versatile my songwriting style is and what I’m capable of. 

6. Someone’s Enemy:  

We often experience relationships that fall apart for various reasons, it’s just an unavoidable  part of life. It doesn’t mean we necessarily gain an enemy out of these situations but for the  sake of enhancing dramatic effect, “enemy” felt right for this song. I wrote this song purely  as therapy when I was experiencing a slow drifting-apart in a friendship I thought would last  a lot longer. I was trying to work through the reason, so I referenced astrology - as you do, “maybe it’s your moon, sun or Saturn? Maybe it’s my mars or Mercury?” And I loved that, so  I built the song around that phrase which resulted in becoming the pre-chorus. I didn’t  intend for this to be more than therapy, but when camping with friends I sang it for them  around the campfire, they loved it! So much so, that every camping trip to this day,  ‘Someone’s Enemy’ is requested usually more than a couple times. So I figured, maybe  people need this song just as I needed it when I wrote it. Maybe people need to be  reminded that there are people who love them deeply despite being someone’s enemy. So it  made the album without a doubt. And it’s a favourite to play live.  

7. A Little Dirt:  

A Little Dirt is a radically honest song about facing and owning life’s regrets. I certainly have  regrets, especially from my 20’s when I was still figuring it all out and getting to know myself  as an adult. Whilst there are many things I’d change if I had the chance, I’m also a firm  believer in divine timing and that everything we experience on our individual timeline has a  higher reason and rhyme. Our regrets are often our greatest teachers and in facing these  chapters and challenges, we realise our own resilience and come to know ourselves on a  deeper level. We come to know what we actually want in life and what we value most. I  think we all have a little dirt on our hands to some degree and I wanted to make light of that  for myself and for the listener in this song. I chose a lighter feel to the song, a bright melody,  an uplifting chorus. I often love to use metaphorical, hidden-meaning style lyrics but for this  song, I wanted the message to be clear and precise. I didn’t want to take away from the very  bold message of the song so I took the guess work out of it for my listener. This is a song of  support for anyone who feels the very common burden of regret, and that “should’ve,  could’ve” feeling that no one escapes in life.  

8. Secondhand Spurs:  

I moved out to Tamworth in my early 20’s and lived down a road right off the famous Peel  Street called King George Avenue. If you google it, it’s actually supposedly haunted and I’ve  heard stories of sightings but for me it was a really beautiful, homely place to live. I was  passionate about horses and alongside music and my day job, I wanted to dedicate as much  time to learning about horses and riding as I could. I hardly knew a soul out there, I had very  little money, no horse, all I had was an old stock saddle my Dad had lent me and some  secondhand spurs. Thankfully the owner of the place I was renting had horses, and I was  able to ride one of the mares whenever I pleased. It worked out well because she needed to  be ridden daily. This is a reminiscent track of that chapter, the haunted avenue, not owning a single thing, feeling clueless and vulnerable and falling for someone who wasn’t right for me.  If my 20’s had a theme song, this one is likely it.  

9. Higher Ground (flood song):  

In early 2022 I was pregnant with my daughter Faith and we experienced one of the largest  floods of my lifetime on the Northern Rivers, it’s still one of the largest natural disasters to  occur in Australia. We have a business and house in Lismore so we went over to lift things off  the ground when we discovered the rain was coming in harder. Lismore is build on a flood  plain so it’s not uncommon for this to happen. Generally the residents of Lismore are safe on  the upper floor of their raised homes, but this time the flood level exceeded that, by far.  Many people were stuck in their roof cavity’s. So we ended up luckily being rescued by a  boat! And thankfully for many people, the heroic and now famous “tinnie brigade”  (everyday local guys in their boats) saved a lot of lives that day. I’ve never experienced  devastation like that. A whole town just wiped away. Relentless rain. I cried every time I  drove into town after that, witnessing that loss and heartache was heavy. Seeing the streets  full of mud and rubble after the water went down. Watching our beloved small businesses  disappear never to return. A skeleton of a town. It took me 11 months to process it to be  able to write about it, then I finally sat down and wrote Higher Ground within a day. My  story and my tribute to everyone affected by that monster of a flood.  

10. Ain’t No 9 to 5:  

My family are hard workers. I never remember my Dad taking a day off, he was always  working the farm, making his stock whips for his business, or fixing something. My Mum was  the same. A weekend wasn’t a weekend without endless productivity. I watched my brother  do the same with his business and his passion for regenerative farming. Then I met my  partner who is also the same, and his family are hard workers too! That admirable and highly  valued trait started to show more significance over the last few years as I stepped into  motherhood, and started to chase my dreams much harder. Nine to five seemed like a  luxury, really. Imagine knocking off when a clock said so? Where’s the passion in that? I  thought. Work is a privilege, passion is a huge privilege and I’ve found there are no time  constraints when you’re working on leaving a heart-led legacy and that’s what this song  celebrates. My admiration and appreciation for the work and the workers. I almost didn’t put it on the album, it was more of a campfire song. But when I sang it to  Rusty he seemed sure of it straight away, and as we built the track I was so grateful it was considered! When I heard Jason Roller’s fiddle on the track, I cried! This is the kind of sound  I’ve always been chasing. This entire album feels like I’ve come home to my sound.