Alex Sampson writes about the specific kind of loss that starts before anything is actually over. “Not Even Gone,” out now via Warner Records, lives in that exact space, the quiet dread of holding someone close while already sensing the end coming.
“It’s not just a song about missing someone, it’s missing them before they’re gone,” Sampson says. “It’s inspired by that feeling when you know you’re going to lose them, whether it’s a breakup, death, or simply leaving for a while. You still have them in that moment.”
The single continues a year that has Sampson moving fast. He recently wrapped support dates with Jamie Miller across North America and Europe, launched his first headline tour across the U.S. and Canada this month, and has a debut album arriving this summer via Warner Records. “Not Even Gone” follows his sophomore EP ‘Hopeless Romantic’ and points directly toward where that album is headed.
Ahadadream has been sitting on “Bass Dhol” since early 2023. The Pakistan-born, London-based producer started the track in Miami with Skrillex, played him some Raf-Sappera, and the three knew immediately what they had. Three years later, the single is out now via Astralwerks, and it’s been worth the wait.
“The beginnings of ‘Bass Dhol’ were back in early 2023, when Sonny invited me to work on music together in Miami,” Ahadadream explains. “That’s when I played him some Raf Saperra too, he loved the vibe and we thought he’d be perfect for this track. Early versions of the track have been getting played since back then, so I’m super happy to finally see this officially going out into the world in its final form.”
The track fuses Punjabi dhol rhythms with driving electronic beats, Ahadadream’s signature skittish drum patterns running underneath Raf-Sappera’s Punjabi vocal presence. It’s a dancefloor record that doesn’t soften its cultural reference points. The dhol is the foundation, not a garnish.
“Bass Dhol” follows “TAKA,” Ahadadream’s previous collaboration with Skrillex and Priya Ragu, which announced him to a global audience in unmistakable fashion. “TAKA” went viral at his debut Boiler Room when Skrillex appeared on screen to debut it live. BBC Radio 1 named it Hottest Record, Essential New Tune, and Track ID, a rare triple crown the station hadn’t awarded since Calvin Harris’ “How Deep Is Your Love” in 2015. Support from Peggy Gou, Fred again.., Four Tet, Dixon, and Chris Lake followed, and the track has since accumulated millions of streams worldwide.
Ahadadream draws from the UK, Pakistan, and the wider African and South Asian diasporas, and his production reflects every one of those influences without ranking them. With scene support from Skrillex, Fred again.., Four Tet, Eliza Rose, and Pete Tong already established, “Bass Dhol” pushes his profile further into the conversation at exactly the right moment.
Ian Munsick is heading back to Red Rocks. The Wyoming-born country artist has expanded his Eagle Flies Free Tour with 10 new dates running through summer 2026, capping the run with a second headlining appearance at Red Rocks Amphitheatre on August 25, his first return to the venue since selling it out in 2024.
The tour supports Munsick’s third studio album ‘Eagle Feather,’ released in 2025 via Warner Music Nashville. Holler praised it for its “expansive tracks, atmospheric anthems,” and Rolling Stone noted the record “is shaped by the landscape of the West, the stories of Native Americans, and the romantic idea of the cowboy.” It’s a 20-track album that covers serious ground, and the tour has been built to match its scale.
Leading into the expanded run is “Geronimo,” Munsick’s first release under WEST TO THE REST RECORDS/Triple Tigers Records and the first preview of new music beyond ‘Eagle Feather.’ The official video, directed by Ben Christensen and shot in Wyoming by Isaac Spotts, is out now. Munsick described it simply: “If National Geographic and 70s country and western MTV had a baby, it would be the music video for ‘Geronimo.'”
Spotts, who filmed on location across Wyoming, added his own take: “This song completely captures the vibe of the west. Getting the opportunity to try and bring those lyrics to life was such an honor.”
Munsick has accumulated over one billion global streams across three albums. His RIAA-Platinum duet “Long Live Cowgirls” with Cody Johnson hit No. 1 on SiriusXM’s The Highway Hot 30. “Long Haul” and “Horses Are Faster” hold RIAA Gold certifications. He’s sold over 100,000 headlining tickets across 2024 and 2025, opened for Lainey Wilson and Morgan Wallen, headlined Cheyenne Frontier Days, and founded his own label imprint WEST TO THE REST RECORDS.
Kenny Whitmire joins as support on the remaining dates. The Georgia-born singer-songwriter moved to Nashville in 2022 and has been sharpening a classic country sound rooted in Merle Haggard, Keith Whitley, and Randy Travis. His recent singles “I Gave Her The Moon” and “Me Being Me” are out now.
Tickets are on sale now at IanMunsick.com.
Eagle Flies Free Tour, Remaining Dates:
22 May — Isle of Palms, SC — The Wind Jammer (w/ Kenny Whitmire)
23 May — Pelham, TN — The Caverns (w/ Kenny Whitmire)
30 May — Cocoa, FL — Cocoa Riverfront Park Amphitheater (w/ Kenny Whitmire)
5 Jun — Louisville, KY — Fourth Street Live
27 Jun — Libby, MT — Happys Inn
25 Aug — Morrison, CO — Red Rocks Amphitheatre (w/ ERNEST and Ned LeDoux)
Devil’s Cut have been building toward this. ‘Roadkill,’ the Louisville country-metal band’s debut album on MNRK Heavy, is out now, and it makes good on every promise the band has been setting up since 2018. Ten tracks, two worlds colliding, and zero apology for either.
The band’s origin traces back to a conversation with manager Cody Ash, drummer for Jelly Roll, who believed merging country and metal wasn’t a gimmick but a direction. Devil’s Cut proved him right. Their 2019 cover of Dan + Shay’s “Tequila” hinted at what was possible. “Insomnia” in 2022 became a TikTok moment with over 97K YouTube views. Touring with Royale Lynn and Attila, plus festival slots at Aftershock, Welcome To Rockville, and Louder Than Life, built the fanbase show by show.
“We grew up on Tim McGraw and Garth Brooks, but we love Metallica and Pantera,” says frontman Trey Landrum. “We’re metal with hints of country, but we’re doing it differently, fucking with it and making it our own.”
To make ‘Roadkill,’ Devil’s Cut relocated to Nashville for a month and wrote with co-writers including Cody Quistad (Pop Evil, A Day To Remember), Serg Sanchez (Morgan Wallen, Bailey Zimmerman), Kile Odell (Nothing More, Cory Marks), and Jordan Centers (Trey Lewis, Josey Scott). Producer Evan McKeever (Miranda Lambert, Starset) shaped the final record. Lap steel, mandolin, and banjo appear throughout, woven in as texture rather than novelty.
Landrum describes the album’s emotional range plainly: “Either sad, ‘I-want-to-cry’ songs or ‘hey man, I want to have a beer and shoot guns in the woods with my friends.'” That contrast runs through every track, from the rowdy opener “Drink With The Devil” to the worn-down weight of “Bottles Run Dry.” The band’s country cadence and everyman lyricism hold both ends together.
Every track on ‘Roadkill’ gets its own video, and Devil’s Cut are spending much of 2026 on the road. Remaining dates continue through June, including a run with Alborn and a summer festival appearance.
‘Roadkill’ is out now on MNRK Heavy.
Upcoming Tour Dates:
6 May — Manalapan, NJ — Locals Bar
7 May — Catonsville, MD — Morsbergers
8 May — Raleigh, NC — Cannonball Music Hall
9 May — Spartanburg, SC — Ground Zero
10 May — Nashville, TN — The Cobra
6 Jun — Chesapeake, OH — Blazing Summer Music Festival
Lords of Acid are back with a new album on the way and a 29-city U.S. tour already underway. The “Cheeky Freaky Tour” kicked off April 25 and runs through May 31, with remaining dates spread across the Midwest, Southeast, Texas, and West Coast. For a band that built its reputation on confrontation, seduction, and pure electronic attitude, this is the tour that backs all of it up with fresh material.
Praga Khan, founder and creative force behind Lords of Acid, isn’t hedging on what this means. “For the first time in eight years, there is truly new material,” he says. “A new album is coming, and the ‘Cheeky Freaky Tour’ ushers in a new era for the band, with respect for the past, but with a clear focus on the future.”
Acid Queen Carla Harvey leads the current lineup through a set that weaves catalog staples like “Pussy,” “I Sit on Acid,” and “Crablouse” alongside new material from the forthcoming album. The show is built around tension, dynamics, and presence, a live electronic experience that doesn’t ease the audience in gently.
The supporting lineup is as deliberately assembled as the setlist. Dead On A Sunday brings raw gothic energy. Princess Superstar delivers sharp lyricism and club-ready swagger. Tony and the Kiki add alternative, fashion-forward pop. MZ Neon opens each night with underground-driven electronic sounds. Both Princess Superstar and Tony and the Kiki also appear on the upcoming Lords of Acid album, giving the live show an added layer of context.
Lords of Acid have spent decades defining what unapologetic electronic music looks and sounds like. This tour isn’t a victory lap. It’s a restatement of everything the band stands for, loud, visual, playful, and entirely on their own terms.
Tickets are available now.
“Cheeky Freaky Tour” Remaining Dates:
4 May — Kansas City, KS — Warehouse
5 May — Minneapolis, MN — Varsity Theater
6 May — Chicago, IL — Bottom Lounge
7 May — Detroit, MI — Magic Stick
8 May — Pittsburgh, PA — Preserving Underground
9 May — Washington, DC — Union
11 May — Cleveland, OH — Mercury
12 May — New York, NY — Racket
14 May — Atlanta, GA — Masquerade
15 May — Orlando, FL — The Abbey
16 May — Ft Lauderdale, FL — Culture Room
17 May — Tampa, FL — Orpheum
19 May — Ft Walton Beach, FL — Downtown Music Hall
Stephanie Urbina Jones made a promise stick. When Vince Gill first heard her Honky Tonk Mariachi sound at Nashville’s 3rd & Lindsley more than a decade ago, he told her he’d be honored to sing with her on a future recording. That moment arrives on “Falling Fearlessly,” out now, with the official music video premiering alongside it.
The song comes from Urbina Jones’ album ‘Manuel’s Destiny’ and was co-written with Peggy Lynn Marchetti, daughter of country legend Loretta Lynn. The two writers found the song during a late-night writing retreat in Mexico, working under a full moon beside the Caribbean Sea. They came back to Nashville knowing they’d captured something that wouldn’t let go.
Gill’s background vocals add a warm emotional layer to a track already built around surrender and courage. It’s a love song that asks something of the listener, not just to feel the sentiment, but to recognize what it takes to follow it. “The heart has no borders,” Urbina Jones says. “It loves who it loves. When it calls you, follow it, it always knows the way.”
The official music video was filmed in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico by Cinnetica Films. Centered on a love story between a Hispanic man and a white woman, reflecting Urbina Jones’ own family heritage, the visual brings in dancers Hannah McCarthy and Arturo Jimenez Cano from Nashville and Mexico. The result is what Urbina Jones calls a “theater of love,” a cross-cultural story told with passion and without apology.
Urbina Jones is a No. 1 Texas Country Radio Artist and No. 1 Billboard Country Songwriter who made history as the first artist to perform with a mariachi ensemble on the Grand Ole Opry stage. She’s shared stages with Willie Nelson, Vince Gill, and The Time Jumpers, and has toured internationally throughout her career. Her Honky Tonk Mariachi sound draws from classic country, Americana, and mariachi traditions, rooted in her San Antonio and Nashville background and shaped by her deep admiration for Linda Ronstadt’s fearless movement across genres.
Luke Grimes made ‘Redbird’ the way country albums used to get made. Recorded primarily at Georgia May Studio in Savannah and Nashville’s historic RCA Studio A, the 10-track sophomore album is out now via Range Music/MCA, produced by Grammy-winning producer Dave Cobb, and built around Grimes’ steady baritone and emotionally direct songwriting.
“Making Redbird was a cathartic experience in many ways,” Grimes says. “Sometimes the highs and lows of life are too much to express with words, so song becomes necessary. As deeply personal as it is, the themes are simple and universal: love, loss, and learning along the way.”
Classic country foundations and organic instrumentation run through every track. Grimes co-wrote the majority of the album and contributed acoustic guitar, percussion, and drums throughout the sessions alongside Cobb and collaborators including Jessie Jo Dillon and Natalie Hemby. The production favors space over decoration, letting the songwriting carry the weight.
The album moves through a range of emotional territory with precision. “Drink Drink Drink” and “Haunted” wrestle with self-doubt and reckoning. “Without You,” “A Little More Time,” and lead single “Love You Now” sit with commitment, loss, and the discipline of staying present. It’s a record that rewards close listening.
Grimes grew up in Ohio playing music in church, listening to Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings. After years in Los Angeles and Montana during the filming of Yellowstone, he landed in Nashville and built a catalog that has now crossed 200 million global streams. His debut single “No Horse to Ride” debuted in the Top 10 on the Country Songs Sales Chart. ‘Redbird’ is the natural next step from an artist who knows exactly what kind of music he wants to make.
Audiences know Grimes best as Kayce Dutton on Paramount Network’s Yellowstone. He now stars in the leading role of CBS series MARSHALS, currently airing. The dual career isn’t a distraction. It’s context for an artist whose work across both screens and studios consistently comes back to character, storytelling, and restraint.
The War And Treaty have recorded some powerful music over the years, but “If This Day” lands in a different category entirely. Written by 17x Oscar-nominated songwriter Diane Warren and performed by Michael and Tanya Trotter with their full gospel-rooted intensity, the track is out now as part of ‘The Gray House Original Soundtrack’ on Amazon Prime Video.
Warren wrote the song for ‘The Gray House,’ Amazon’s limited series about four women who run an Underground Railroad network that evolves into a wartime espionage ring. Executive produced by Kevin Costner, Morgan Freeman, and Lori McCreary, the series places music at the center of its emotional architecture, and “If This Day” is one of the soundtrack’s most significant pieces.
“‘If This Day’ is not only about these brave women of The Gray House,” Warren says. “It also applies to us all, to look at ourselves and ask did we do all we could do, did we stand up for those we needed to stand up for, did we live enough, love enough, forgive enough.”
Produced by Desmond Child, Marti Frederiksen, and Leslie Greif, the song pairs sweeping orchestration with the Trotters’ voices carrying both strength and vulnerability across every bar. Tanya Trotter described the moment Warren played it for them in her studio: “Michael and I were immediately captured by the lyrics.” Michael added, “Every day we all need to ask ourselves the questions asked in this song. It’s our way of staying humble and always in the posture of servanthood.”
The War And Treaty are two-time GRAMMY nominees, multiple ACM and CMA nominees, and Americana Honors & Awards Duo/Group of the Year. They’ve performed at the Grand Ole Opry and on the Super Bowl pregame stage. The New York Times noted that “love and connection is vital to the War and Treaty’s mission.” That description fits “If This Day” precisely.
The soundtrack opens with Willie Nelson’s “Heart Of America” and builds outward from there. The full roster includes Lainey Wilson, Yolanda Adams, Shania Twain and Drake Milligan, Killer Mike featuring Lena Byrd Miles, Larkin Poe, Adrienne Warren, and Scott Stapp. The War And Treaty appear twice, also contributing “Blood In the River.”
‘The Gray House Original Soundtrack’ is out now across all platforms.
Tracklisting — The Gray House (Original Soundtrack From the Amazon Series):
The War And Treaty — “Blood In the River”
Adrienne Warren — “Unholy Water”
Yolanda Adams — “Love Will Rescue Me”
The War And Treaty — “If This Day”
Scott Stapp — “Red, White, & Blue”
Lainey Wilson — “Dead End Red Dirt Road”
Larkin Poe — “The Devil’s Boat”
Killer Mike Featuring Lena Byrd Miles — “Smiling Eyes (Smiling Faces)”
Shania Twain and Drake Milligan — “I’ll Be Here With You”
Dylan Conrique traded Los Angeles for Nashville, and the adjustment wasn’t seamless. “Polaroid,” her first new music of 2026, documents exactly what that transition felt like, the self-doubt, the comparison spiral, and the slow work of talking yourself back to solid ground. It’s out now, along with an official visualizer directed by David OD.
Written with Tom Mann and Nicole Beaubien and produced by Brett Truitt, “Polaroid” is a slow-building country ballad anchored by tender acoustic guitar and harmonies that give the song a genuinely soothing quality. Conrique wrote it as a reminder to herself during a period of real confusion, and that origin shows in every line.
“When I first moved to Nashville, I felt so inspired by the city, but reality hit me hard,” Conrique explains. “I went through a phase of thinking, ‘I wish that could be me’ and ‘When will it be my time?’ When I wrote this song, I wrote it as a reminder that I’m okay, that everyone’s timing is different, and that nothing good comes from comparing myself to others. It’s been such a healing song for me.”
The visualizer, shot in black-and-white, places Conrique alone in a bedroom, away from the outside world. It captures the song’s interior mood without overplaying it. The final seconds, a quiet smile, land with more impact than anything louder could have managed.
“Polaroid” follows “How To Lose The Girl,” a fall 2025 release that landed on Billboard’s “5 Must-Hear New Country Songs” roundup. Before that came “Written In Stone,” a love song about the fear of losing someone irreplaceable. Taken together, the three singles reflect a songwriter building something with real depth and intention.
The backstory matters here. Conrique grew up on a farm in Northern California with country music as a constant, moved to Los Angeles young to pursue acting, earned a recurring role on ABC’s The Rookie, made her music debut at 15, went GOLD with the viral pop single “birthday cake,” collaborated with super-producer Max Martin, and headlined an international tour. Then she walked away from pop entirely and moved to Nashville to start over as a songwriter.
That’s not a pivot taken lightly, and “Polaroid” makes clear it wasn’t without cost. What Conrique has found on the other side of that discomfort is a sound rooted in her own experience, quiet, gently commanding, and built to last longer than a viral moment.
Maddox Batson is a 16-year-old wrapping up a 44-date worldwide headline tour. The Nashville-based country artist has spent 2026 crossing North America and now takes his Live Worldwide Tour into Europe this month, his first-ever headline run across Ireland, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.
The tour arrives on the back of “If I See Her Again,” out now via Warner Records/Prosper Entertainment. Written with Grant Averill, Dave Cohen, and Jackson Foote, the track is an upbeat, groove-driven song about a missed connection and the moment you wish you’d said something. Batson puts it plainly: “You never get that time back. I think everyone can relate.”
The LA Times called him “a country Justin Bieber in the making.” He’s the youngest male to appear on Billboard’s 21 Under 21. Forbes, USA Today, American Songwriter, NBC Nightly News, and PEOPLE have all taken notice. A Grand Ole Opry debut and a Stagecoach festival appearance landed in 2025, alongside support dates on Lainey Wilson’s Whirlwind Tour.
2026 has been Batson’s most ambitious year by a wide margin. Beyond the tour, he secured the first-ever artist collaboration in Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s 150-year history, and won Good Good Golf’s Desert Open in Tempe, Arizona alongside Garrett Clark and Marissa Wenzler. More new music is also on the way.
“If I See Her Again” follows “Any Other Night,” a coming-of-age track combining smooth vocal flow, clean guitars, and a laid-back digital beat. Both singles point toward a young artist building a catalog with real range and consistent commercial instinct.
Tickets for all remaining shows are available now at MaddoxBatson.com.
Live Worldwide Tour 2026, European Dates:
12 May — Dublin, IE — 3Olympia Theatre
13 May — Glasgow, UK — SWG3 Galvanizers
15 May — Manchester, UK — Manchester Academy 2
16 May — London, UK — O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire
