Carter Faith, Laci Kaye Booth and Baby Nova Are Bringing the Female Country Trio Back With ‘Pearl Handled Pistol’

Carter Faith, Laci Kaye Booth and Baby Nova recently teased their anticipated collaboration, “Pearl Handled Pistol,” giving fans an early glimpse at a song and visual that feel like they were pulled from a roadside motel somewhere between Nashville and nowhere.

The teaser leans fully into an aesthetic that the internet might call “cuntry” rather than simply country: retro, feminine, slightly dangerous and romantic without looking overly perfect. Think motel keys, smudged eyeliner, vintage lingerie, wood-paneled walls and a pearl-handled weapon that gives the song its name.

The song will appear on Faith’s expanded debut album, “Cherry Valley Forever,” which arrives Friday, July 24. The deluxe edition adds five songs to the original “Cherry Valley” tracklist, including “Dead Horse,” “Nothin’ Better to Do” with Wyatt Flores, “If a Man’s From Texas,” “Ain’t Over Me Yet” and the newly expanded version of “Pearl Handled Pistol,” featuring Booth and Baby Nova.

“Pearl Handled Pistol” is not entirely new to Faith’s audience. She first surprised fans with Booth during two sold-out Nashville shows in March, bringing her onstage to debut the song live. The performance offered an early taste of the chemistry between the two singers before Baby Nova was added to the official album version.

That addition changes the dynamic. This is no longer simply a duet tucked into a deluxe album. It is a genuine three-woman collaboration arriving at a time when country fans appear especially eager to see female artists work together, show up in one another’s content and behave like actual friends instead of competitors fighting for one available seat.

Faith enters the collaboration after a defining year of her own. Released in October 2025, “Cherry Valley” established a cinematic world built from classic country, 1960s pop, faded glamour and emotionally complicated storytelling. The project later earned an ACM Album of the Year nomination, making it the first debut album nominated in the category since Chris Stapleton’s “Traveller” a decade earlier. Faith was also the only woman represented in the category.

The album’s sound and imagery have always existed somewhere between a honky-tonk, an old Hollywood dressing room and a motel where nobody asks why the carpet is that color.

“Cherry Valley Forever” does not abandon that universe. Instead, it expands upon it.

Booth fits naturally inside that atmosphere.

“Cherry Valley Forever” album artwork courtesy of Gatsby Records and MCA Nashville.

The Texas singer has been building her own hazy, glamorous version of Southern storytelling, pairing a smoky voice with songs that feel intimate, atmospheric and slightly unruly. Her latest single, “Ethereal Redneck Shit,” has become both a song and a concise description of her artistic identity: dreamy but grounded, glamorous but unafraid of a little dirt. Released in June, the track leads into Booth’s forthcoming album, “Love Ain’t for the Faint of Heart,” due Sept. 18.

Baby Nova adds a less expected third ingredient. Originally from Halifax, Nova Scotia, the singer-songwriter operates primarily in the indie-pop world, but her music already carries elements of Americana, country soul and darkly comic storytelling. Her debut album, “Shhugar,” arrived in January and explores desire, religion, power and heartbreak with a dreamy sound and a deliberately provocative sense of humor.

Her presence pushes “Pearl Handled Pistol” beyond a conventional Nashville collaboration. Faith supplies the cinematic country foundation, Booth brings her distinctive vocals and runs, and Baby Nova adds a darker indie-pop edge. Together, they create a trio that feels less like it was assembled in a record label conference room and more like three women who met beside an empty motel pool and decided to make a song before checkout.

Country music has a long history of proving that groups of women within the genre can create something larger than a standard feature. Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris set the benchmark with “Trio” in 1987. The Chicks built an enduring identity around harmony, musicianship and shared, outspoken, personality. Pistol Annies later turned the individual perspectives of Miranda Lambert, Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley into one of modern country music’s most distinctive groups. The teaser video for “Pearl Handled Pistol” has already received multiple fan comparisons to the Pistol Annies.

The appeal of those groups has never been limited to three-part harmony. Fans get invested in the chemistry. They want all the details: the outfits, the interviews, the behind-the-scenes videos and the sense that the artists genuinely enjoy sharing the room.

That appetite may be even stronger now. Social media has made friendship part of the story surrounding a release. When female artists appear in one another’s videos, comment on each other’s posts or unexpectedly walk onstage together, fans treat it like the expansion of a shared universe.

“Pearl Handled Pistol” understands that assignment.

Whether the collaboration becomes a one-time moment or the beginning of something larger remains to be seen. Still, Faith, Booth and Baby Nova already look like a trio that belongs together. Their voices, aesthetics and individual brands overlap without becoming interchangeable.

The result is feminine without being delicate, nostalgic without becoming a costume and country without behaving too respectfully.