VIA PRESS RELEASE | The Fratellis critically acclaimed fourth studio album, Eyes Wide, Tongue Tied, is now available for the first time on limited sunburst vinyl.

After the release of 2013’s We Need Medicine, the band spent a year touring the world. At the tail end of 2014, they decamped to LA to work on album number four with Tony Hoffer (M83, Depeche Mode, and Belle & Sebastian), who also produced their first album smash Costello Music.

That unique, bright clarity of California sunshine seems to permeate the record and the band channelled it to create an album that represents what they do best. At the heart of Eyes Wide, Tongue Tied there’s a fun, energetic soul reminiscent of their 2006 debut. With recognisable nods to ’70s Cali-rock, rockabilly, and glorious hints of Americana and country layered high, it’s a glorious homecoming with roots in both Scotland and LA.

Littered with standout tracks: the foot-stomping “Baby Don’t You Lie To Me!,” the spiraling riffs of “Getting Surreal,” and “Thief”—all big choruses and live crowd pleasers. “Dogtown” parades along with its strident brass section and funk-driven bass line; and an early-seventies Stevie Wonder cover of The Beatles’ “Come Together.” While the delicate, drifting layers of “Moonshine” bring us to a reflective, poised ending.

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Set against the backdrop of a global rock phenomenon, The Vampire Lestat follows Lestat de Lioncourt as played by Sam Reid on an electric multi-city tour while he’s haunted by “muses” from his wild and rebellious past. Preorder the soundtrack here.

As his band’s popularity and star power rises, so does Lestat’s influence over vampires and human’s alike, leaving others to contend with Lestat’s power in the face of The Great Conversion, an unnatural surge in the vampire population. In addition to Reid, The Vampire Lestat star Jacob Anderson, Assad Zaman, Eric Bogosian, Delainey Hayles, and Jennifer Ehle, and is executive produced by Mark Johnson, creator, writer, and showrunner Rolin Jones, Hannah Moscovitch, Christopher Rice, and the late Anne Rice.

Daniel Hart is a composer and performer based in Los Angeles. He made his feature film debut with the critically acclaimed Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, beginning an ongoing collaboration with filmmaker David Lowery, and has since composed the music for all of Lowery’s films, including Pete’s Dragon, A Ghost Story, The Old Man & the Gun, and The Green Knight.

His recent projects include A24’s Mother Mary, AMC’s hit series The Vampire Lestat, and The Dutchman starring Kate Mara and André Holland. Recent work also includes An Almost Christmas Story, Sunny, and Peter Pan & Wendy, reflecting Hart’s approach to scoring that blends orchestral writing, experimental textures, and an intimate emotional perspective.

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Celebrating Wanda Jackson on her 89th birthday. —Ed.

When it comes to vocalists—male, female, whale, Sasquatch, you name it—it’s hard to top Wanda “The Queen of Rockabilly” Jackson. For a couple of years at the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s, Jackson recorded a bunch of truly hair-raising vocal performances that generated every bit as much feral excitement and raw sexual energy as the ones being recorded by Elvis Presley (whom she dated for a brief spell), Jerry Lee Lewis, Gene Vincent, and Little Richard. The very much alive Jackson possesses vocal cords made of barbed wire, and has never met a tempo—most of them played back in the day with lethal intensity by a relatively unsung young guitar slinger named Roy Clark—so raucous she couldn’t rein it in. And she can yodel up a storm, too.

There were other women singing rockabilly during its golden age; Janis Martin, for example, who was unfortunate enough to have the moniker “the Female Elvis” hung around her neck like an albatross. But Martin had a more staid vocal style that came up short in the barbaric yawp department.

For the most part, the same goes for Lorrie Collins of novelty act the Collins Kids, who had her moments of inspiration (check out her wonderfully frenzied take on “Mercy”) but who rarely roamed into the realm of the possessed. Jackson was a full-grown woman, and her voice was a force of nature in 1961, and still is; listen to the 73-year-old Jackson kick up a rockin’ ruckus out on such raunch’n’roll numbers as “Shakin’ All Over” and “Rip It Up” on 2011’s Jack White-produced The Party Ain’t Over if you have any doubts about the matter.

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The sole studio album (thus far) by Willis Alan Ramsey was released in 1972 by Shelter Records, the label of musician Leon Russell. The lack of a follow-up should hopefully provide adequate insight into the album’s commercial reception, although it did inspire numerous other artists through better-known cover versions. But Willis Alan Ramsey holds up in its own right as yet another undersung artifact of folky, country-tinged singer-songwriter goodness from an era abundant with the stuff, the early 1970s. A first-time vinyl reissue is freshly out by Superior Viaduct subsidiary Antarctica Starts Here.

Some of these rediscovered folky singer-songwriters are total obscurities that cut records for small, often regional labels, or even self-released their stuff. Even when the albums have an aura of excellence about them, the chances these musicians would’ve found “success” in an already overcrowded field were infinitesimally small.

Willis Alan Ramsey’s percentages were much higher. That he cut a record for Shelter in itself is evidence of a considerable level of achievement. It’s just too bad the album didn’t sell. That a few of the LP’s songs were recorded by other artists, and with “Muskrat Love” a sizable hit for Captain & Tennille, underscores that Ramsey could’ve easily sold some records had the chips fallen just a little bit differently.

That “Muskrat Love,” which was titled “Muskrat Candlelight” on the original pressing of Willis Alan Ramsey, should reinforce a level of soft-rock in its composer’s disposition. And that’s alright. Before Captain & Tennille skyrocketed the song, America had a smaller hit with it as it landed on their 1973 album Hat Trick. That Waylon Jennings chose to cut a version of this album’s “Satin Sheets” for his 1977 album Ol’ Waylon highlights the country side of Ramsey’s personality.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | “This book is an amazing chronicle of the colorful & adventurous life of Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, who has been a great friend to me for many years and actually one of the few people in the music business I can say that about. The smartest person in the room, he is a wealth of knowledge about a great many things, technical, historical and philosophical. Reading his book was quite the ride. And man, that f*cker can play!” —Slash

From a founding member of Steely Dan and former guitarist with the Doobie Brothers, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, comes the astonishing true story of one of the most fascinating lives in American music, tracing his extraordinary journey from legendary rock and roll guitarist to a highly successful second career as a Subject Matter Expert in the world of defense, space, wargaming, and counter-terrorism.

Harper Influence, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, announced today the publication of Baxter’s long-awaited memoir, From Rock to Rockets: My Life as a Hall of Fame Guitar Slinger, Mad Scientist of Sound, and Citizen Warrior for National Defense. SVP and Publisher of Harper Influence, Lisa Sharkey, negotiated the deal for World rights with Jud Laghi at The Jud Laghi Agency, with Senior Editor Maddie Downing editing the book. Publication in the US and Canada will be on January 26, 2027, with preorders available now.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Six-time GRAMMY-winning musician, producer, and composer Don Was announced Live Dispatch Vol. 1: Blues For Allah ’26, a new live album from Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble. Honoring Don’s longtime friend and collaborator Bob Weir, the album features performances captured along The Ensemble’s recent tour celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Grateful Dead’s Blues for Allah. Releasing November 20 via Verve, the album announcement comes with the first single “The Music Never Stopped.”

In 2018, Don joined Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir to form the Wolf Brothers, a band that continued to tour in the US and overseas until Weir’s passing in 2026. “Playing with Bobby Weir and The Wolf Bros drew me deep into the music of the Grateful Dead,” says Don.

“The songs became way more than lyrics and a chord chart—they became more like ‘friends’ that I looked forward to hanging out with night after night. We hope that this record conveys our deep respect and love for this music and for the fans who have made it such an important part of their lives.”

The Pan-Detroit Ensemble features top-tier jazz musicians from Don’s hometown, including longtime collaborator Dave McMurray on saxophone, and additional members include drummer Jeff Canady, trombonist Vincent Chandler, vocalist Steffanie Christi’an, trumpeter John Douglas, guitarist Wayne Gerard, percussionist Mahindi Masai, and keyboardist Phil Whitfield.

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Remembering Peter Tosh, born on this day in 1944. —Ed.

Live at My Father’s Place 1978 offers crisp audio of a Peter Tosh performance originally broadcast live on the radio via New York’s WLIR FM. While it’s unlikely to alter many opinions, positive or negative, of Tosh’s work at this stage of his career, it does accurately represent the man’s musical direction during a commercially productive and musically transitional period. 

Flash back to 1978, and Peter Tosh was in the midst of his most fertile commercial run. That year saw the release of Bush Doctor, his first album for Rolling Stones Records, a set that found him duetting with Mick Jagger on a Temptations tune. If Tosh wasn’t reggae’s biggest star at the time, he was sitting pretty secure in the number two spot.

While album-focused listeners might disagree, Peter Tosh’s early recordings endure as his strongest work, cohering into an unimpeachable stretch of singles both solo and as part of the Wailers; alongside Bob Marley and Bunny Livingston, the Wailers eventually cut a string of crucial LPs in the early ’70s, before Tosh and Livingston’s departure and the Wailers effectively shifting to Marley’s backing band.

However, the appraisals of Tosh’s post-Equal Rights LPs are decidedly varied. This is partly due to an increased attempt to score crossover success, which, as detailed above, was fully realized. Although he’d been frequenting studios since the mid-’60s, Tosh didn’t release his full-length solo debut until 1976, after signing with Columbia. The record, Legalize It, remains his best-known, and for reasons that should be obvious: for decades, its title track was an anthem for folks who were tired of being hassled for their stash.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Two brother bands share center stage today as Rhino High Fidelity (Rhino Hi-Fi) welcomes new audiophile vinyl editions of Devo’s New Traditionalists and Sparks’ A Woofer in Tweeter’s Clothing.

Both albums were cut from the original master tapes by Kevin Gray and pressed on 180-gram black vinyl at Optimal in Germany. Each comes in a glossy gatefold sleeve with new liner notes. The albums are limited to 5,000 individually numbered copies and available exclusively at Rhino.com and select Warner Music Group stores internationally.

New Traditionalists arrived in August 1981, a year after the mainstream breakthrough of “Whip It” from Freedom Of Choice. Rather than retrace their steps, Devo pushed forward. “Mutate, don’t stagnate!” Gerald Casale writes in the new liner notes.

To that end, Mark and Bob Mothersbaugh, Gerald and Bob Casale, and Alan Myers embraced Roland sequencers and a Linn drum machine, folding new technology into Devo’s funky-punk, robotic sound. Lyrically, the songs reflected a darkening view of the human condition, wrapping sincere observations in Devo’s trademark satire. “Through Being Cool” takes aim at conformity, while “Beautiful World” undercuts its optimistic refrain with the final line: “It’s a beautiful world for you…not me.”

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Wondrous news! Christmas is coming early this year! Because on the 13th of November, Skep Wax Records is releasing the third full-length by British-Welsh indie supergroup Swansea Sound, Pre-Post-Truth!

That’s right—the smartest, wittiest, and hardest-rocking band ever to be labeled (and don’t even think of saying it to their faces) twee is back, and they’re even letting me buy it, despite the fact that I myself once called them twee! For which they gave me a thorough thrashing, after which all was forgiven!

And even better news! Swansea Sound, who split the difference between high-intellect protest songs, sardonic digs at the music industry, and lovely songs that will make you happier than Krishna’s favorite cow, have released two singles to whet your appetite for the full meal, “Mean to Be Mean” and “On Our Own.”

Both of which offer further proof that Swansea Sound, who are charming on record, even more charming live (I was lucky enough to catch them in Philadelphia at Johnny & Brenda’s) and exceptionally charming in person, continue to play their A Game since I first heard such early songs as “Corporate Indie Band” and (the tongue-in-cheek paean to Hue and Amelia’s old band) “The Pooh Sticks.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | In celebration of the 25th anniversary of Diana Krall’s landmark album The Look of Love, a deluxe 25th anniversary edition of the acclaimed recording is available for pre-order today. The Look of Love (25th Anniversary Edition) arrives November 20th and features five bonus tracks, including “But Not For Me,” available digitally for the first time today.

The album will be available as a Deluxe CD and digitally, alongside a limited-edition One-Step vinyl pressing of the original album. Originally released in 2001, The Look of Love marked an expansion of Krall’s signature sound through sweeping orchestral arrangements and a cinematic collection of ballads and bossa nova standards.

Produced by Tommy LiPuma, the album features the London Symphony Orchestra with arrangements by legendary composer and arranger Claus Ogerman. The acclaimed recording went on to earn the 2002 GRAMMY Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical and three JUNO Awards, including Album of the Year.

The Look of Love (25th Anniversary Edition) will be available as a Deluxe CD, as well as a limited-edition One-Step vinyl pressing of the original 10-track album. The Deluxe CD includes all five bonus tracks, including “I Love Being Here With You (Live From The Vault),” which will be available exclusively on iTunes, digitally.

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