Home Blog Page 9

Maren Davidsen’s Nordic Americana Has Found Its Nashville Moment With “Tennessee On My Mind”

Eric Alper
-
0
Maren Davidsen’s Nordic Americana Has Found Its Nashville Moment With “Tennessee On My Mind”

Some songs arrive fully formed from a moment of crisis. “Tennessee On My Mind,” the debut single from Norwegian singer-songwriter Maren Davidsen, is exactly that kind of song. Written during a solo trip to Nashville while emotionally raw and far from home, it’s the first release from her upcoming debut album ‘This Is Where I Leave You’, produced by Martin Vinje and released via AWAL.

Davidsen’s story is not a straight line. She picked up the guitar at six, grew up absorbing Mark Knopfler, Bruce Springsteen and Willie Nelson, then spent eight years in London, deep in Mayfair’s nightlife and everything that came with it. The highs were real. So were the personal upheavals. In 2023, she relocated to Oslo, and the writing began in earnest.

Nashville was meant to be a creative reset. It became something deeper. During a London layover just before the trip, she encountered an ex tied to a chaotic and damaging chapter of her life. Arriving in Tennessee still carrying that weight, the emotional reckoning she’d been avoiding finally surfaced.

“I remember arriving in Nashville feeling completely drained, physically and mentally, and suddenly very far from home,” Davidsen says. “I felt lonely and lost, but also excited and inspired. Looking back, that trip became the beginning of letting go, not just of a relationship, but of that entire phase of my life.”

That honesty is what makes “Tennessee On My Mind” land so hard. Storytelling lyrics, spine-tingling harmonies and raw acoustic guitar open gradually into layered instrumentation with country-tinged strings and an echoing, reflective quality. It’s a beautiful piece of Nordic americana, emotionally direct and sonically rich.

“I wanted people back home to think I was okay,” Davidsen adds. “But I wasn’t, not fully. I think this song came from finally being alone with that truth.”

‘This Is Where I Leave You’ collects nine tracks written about love in all its forms, from infatuation to heartbreak, and the harder work of knowing when something is over. Influenced by First Aid Kit, Kacey Musgraves and Mumford & Sons, the album was recorded with a full band and stays rooted in the organic, song-led approach that defines Davidsen’s work. It arrives October 2026.

North Carolina Bluegrass Rising Stars Carolina Detour Share Deeply Personal New Single “No Wrong Turn”

Eric Alper
-
0
North Carolina Bluegrass Rising Stars Carolina Detour Share Deeply Personal New Single “No Wrong Turn”

Carolina Detour have released “No Wrong Turn,” and the story behind the song is as compelling as the song itself. The rising bluegrass group from the foothills of North Carolina co-wrote the track with a directness that comes from lived experience, not craft exercise. Band member and 16-year-old fiddle player and lead vocalist Lake Carver wrote it with her mother Holly after a difficult stretch following the pandemic, when the family relocated back to Wilkesboro, North Carolina and spent nearly six months living in a camper while finding their footing again. What emerged from that period wasn’t bitterness but clarity, and “No Wrong Turn” carries every bit of that hard-won perspective. Listen here.

The song opens with a lyric that sets the tone immediately: “There is no wrong direction / When you trust in where to go / Even when you go in circles / That’s just a long way home.” From there it moves through vivid imagery of gravel roads and trees dancing in the wind, anchoring the emotional journey in a physical landscape that feels unmistakably specific to the North Carolina they came back to. The reassuring refrain at its center lands with the kind of simplicity that only works when it’s genuinely believed by the people singing it.

The lineup behind the song is remarkable for its youth and its musical maturity in equal measure. Lake Carver sings lead and plays fiddle at 16, joined by Malachi Bulman on banjo and harmony vocals at 16, Lyla Cherry on harmony vocals at 16, Tae Childress on mandolin at 14, and Hudson Mikeal on guitar at 14. Elijah Bulman holds down the bass at 22. Together they bring a freshness to the bluegrass tradition that honors the form without being constrained by it.

The recording itself came directly from a major career milestone. Carolina Detour won the 2025 Blue Highway Fest Rising Stars Challenge, earning a one-song session at Maggard Studio in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, produced by Wayne Taylor of Blue Highway and released on Huckleberry Records. That opportunity produced a track that sounds far beyond what a prize session might suggest, with additional mixing and mastering by Chris Latham at Gorillas Nest Studio in Ashland City, Tennessee.

The band has already built meaningful stage experience, with appearances at the International Bluegrass Music Awards, The Tony Rice Festival, and multiple performances at MerleFest. “No Wrong Turn” is available now on all major streaming platforms.

Donna Dafi Reclaims Her Power on Groove-Driven New Single “ManGo”

Eric Alper
-
0
Donna Dafi Reclaims Her Power on Groove-Driven New Single “ManGo”

Donna Dafi’s third single of 2026 is her most assured yet. “ManGo” arrives today via her own label Record17, a sun-soaked, groove-driven track that sits comfortably between R&B, alternative pop, and globally influenced club sounds, built on rolling Afro-leaning percussion and a bass-led pulse that pulls you in and doesn’t let go. The German-born artist of Albanian and Nigerian heritage delivers her vocals with a calm, controlled ease that matches the track’s quiet confidence perfectly. Listen here.

The concept behind the song is sharper than its smooth surface suggests. “ManGo is about seeing through charm and manipulation,” Donna explains. “That moment when you fully realise your worth and decide you’re no longer playing along. I was always being called sweet, compared to sugar, even to a mango, his favourite fruit. But instead of falling for it again, I flipped it. I took the word he used for me and turned it into my power.” The wordplay at the center of the track, letting that man go, letting that ManGo, is the kind of detail that makes a song stick long after the groove fades out.

It’s also deeply personal in a way that gives the song real weight. “This is one of my favourite songs I’ve ever written because it’s incredibly personal,” she says. “It felt like reading out my diary, a kind of therapy session where I could be honest, process everything and even laugh about it.” That balance of humor and hard-won clarity is exactly what makes “ManGo” land differently than a straightforward empowerment track. It’s specific, warm, and self-aware in equal measure.

“ManGo” follows “Primadonna” in January and “Touch Me Like That” in March, two releases that have been steadily building Donna’s world through emotional honesty and a strong sense of identity. With a master’s degree in architecture informing her refined sense of structure and balance, her songwriting reflects an artist who knows exactly what she’s building and why. “ManGo” marks her most fully realized step forward to date, and it hints at a wider sonic world still coming into focus.

Irish Composer BK Pepper Releases Ambitious Second Album ‘Pagan’ With Czech National Symphony Orchestra

Eric Alper
-
0
Irish Composer BK Pepper Releases Ambitious Second Album ‘Pagan’ With Czech National Symphony Orchestra

BK Pepper’s second album ‘Pagan’ is out now on London-based independent label Bigo & Twigetti, and it arrives as one of the more compelling orchestral releases on the 2026 calendar. The follow-up to 2020’s ‘Territories’ finds the Irish composer and producer working at a significantly expanded scale, collaborating with renowned violinist Viktor Orri Árnason, the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, and Ireland’s Glasshouse Ensemble to build something that moves between cinematic orchestration and deeply intimate layered textures throughout its ten tracks. Listen here.

The album’s central concept is built around belief itself, what it looks like when religious, political, or personal systems of conviction begin to fracture. “I was drawn to the idea of the pagan as someone outside the dominant narrative, someone questioning, resisting or searching,” Pepper explains. “At its core, the album asks whether we can rediscover shared humanity in an era that constantly pushes us into tribes.” It’s a wide-angle lens on something deeply personal, and the music reflects that dual ambition, feeling both collective and intimate depending on where you’re standing inside it.

Alongside the album comes the latest single “Brother Sister,” an emotionally charged orchestral piece led by intertwining vocals and violin that sits at the emotional heart of the record. Árnason’s string work brings what Pepper describes as “raw and fragile honesty” to the track, and the vocal delivery was deliberately left exposed to match that vulnerability. “There is tension in it, but also deep loyalty,” Pepper says. “It feels like a conversation between closeness and distance, which is something many of us recognise in our own relationships.” It’s a quiet devastator of a track, the kind that rewards a careful listen in a room with the lights down.

The Irish Times awarded ‘Pagan’ four out of five stars, calling it “edgier, more cinematic” than its predecessor. Total Entertainment described it as “expansive and deeply human.” Both assessments track. Pepper has been working across film, theatre, animation, and gaming alongside his album work, with his score for ‘Swing Bout’ receiving a cinema release in 2024 and heading to Apple TV later this year. ‘Pagan’ sits apart from all of that, a fully realized artistic statement that demands attention on its own terms.

‘Pagan’ is out now on all major streaming platforms via Bigo & Twigetti.

‘Pagan’ Tracklist:

  1. Pagan
  2. Flora & Fauna
  3. Brother Sister
  4. Common Ground
  5. Weighing It Up
  6. So You Know
  7. You’re Not Alone
  8. Older
  9. I Follow
  10. I Love You

Shaboozey Announces Ambitious Concept Album ‘The Outlaw Cherie Lee & Other Western Tales’ Due July 31

Eric Alper
-
0
Shaboozey Announces Ambitious Concept Album ‘The Outlaw Cherie Lee & Other Western Tales’ Due July 31

Shaboozey has announced his fourth album, ‘The Outlaw Cherie Lee & Other Western Tales,’ and it’s the most ambitious project of his career by a significant margin. A full cinematic concept record built around an original outlaw revenge narrative, the album arrives July 31 via his own American Dogwood imprint in partnership with Empire. The first single, “Born To Die,” drops April 24, the same day Shaboozey celebrates with a special performance at the Today Plaza in New York City.

The story at the center of the album is fully realized and uncompromising. After watching her sheriff father murdered by the Bootcut Boys, Cherie Lee abandons the badge and hunts the gang down one by one. In the middle of her vengeance, she unexpectedly falls for one of the outlaws. He believes loving her can redeem him. She hopes loving him can quiet her darkness. They’re both wrong. In the final act, Cherie chooses blood over love, killing the man who loves her most and fully becoming what she set out to destroy. It’s a proper western narrative, complete with revenge, redemption, and romance, told continuously across every song on the album.

Shaboozey has been direct about what this project means to him and how it differs from what came before. “‘Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going’ was a journal entry and an opportunity for the world to get to know more about me as a person,” he explains. “That album changed my life. But now I want to show the world who I am as an artist and storyteller. The Outlaw Cherie Lee is a project that’s been several years in the making. It’s a western about revenge told continuously through every song. I poured all of myself into this.” The scale of that ambition is reflected in the collaborators he’s assembled, continuing his pattern of pulling from across the musical spectrum. Previous partners have included Jelly Roll, Noah Cyrus, BigXthaPlug, and Sierra Ferrell, and the new album brings another slate of high-profile features that push country’s genre boundaries further than ever.

To launch the album’s world properly, Shaboozey is bringing Cherie Lee to life at Stagecoach 2026 with an immersive pop-up saloon experience running April 24 through 26 on the festival grounds. The fully realized Western saloon environment is built directly from the album’s narrative, offering fans exclusive album previews and appearances from Shaboozey himself. It’s a bold way to introduce a concept record, turning the festival into the album’s first act.

‘The Outlaw Cherie Lee & Other Western Tales’ arrives July 31. “Born To Die” is out April 24. Tour details are forthcoming.

Sammy Hagar Returns to the UK for First Tour Since 1996 With Three-Night London Run at New British Airways ARC

Eric Alper
-
0
Sammy Hagar Returns to the UK for First Tour Since 1996 With Three-Night London Run at New British Airways ARC

Sammy Hagar is heading back to the UK for the first time in 30 years, and he’s doing it properly. The Best of All Worlds Tour has announced updated UK dates built around a three-night London residency at the soon-to-open British Airways ARC, a new tech-forward venue that drew Hagar in for the same reasons his Las Vegas residency at Dolby Live worked so well. The decision to revise the original UK routing came directly from that Vegas experience, where the combination of sound, technology, and intimate scale created exactly the kind of connection Hagar wanted to replicate for UK audiences.

“After waiting 30 years to come back, we really wanted to get this right,” Hagar says. “When I heard our promoter was opening a similar tech-forward venue in London, that really sealed the deal for me. Three nights, a fresh set every night, and I get to stay in London, one of my favorite cities in the world, for a week. That’s the Best of All Worlds.” The promise of a different setlist each night at the ARC is a genuine commitment to fans who make the trip more than once, and given the depth of catalog Hagar is working from, spanning his solo career, his tenure with Van Halen, and Chickenfoot, there’s more than enough material to make that happen.

Special guests Jayler join the UK run throughout. Fans who purchased tickets for the original UK dates will be contacted directly with priority presale access for the new shows and a ten percent merchandise offer on show nights. New tickets go on sale Friday, April 24 at 10 AM local time.

The tour draws heavily from last fall’s ‘Sammy Hagar & The Best of All Worlds Band: The Residency’ album, a 19-track live record captured during the Dolby Live residency at Park MGM in 2025 that documents the full energy and hit-packed setlist in real time. The group also returns to Vegas in 2026 for 11 additional performances.

On the North American side, the tour runs June 13 through June 27, launching in St. Louis and wrapping at MGM National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland, with Rick Springfield along as special guest throughout that run. Produced by Live Nation, it’s a full-scale operation on both sides of the Atlantic for an artist whose catalog holds up across every era.

The All-American Rejects Release “King Kong” and Tease House Party Tour Ahead of First Album in Over a Decade

Eric Alper
-
0
The All-American Rejects Release “King Kong” and Tease House Party Tour Ahead of First Album in Over a Decade

The All-American Rejects are making their comeback count. The band has released “King Kong,” the latest single from their forthcoming album ‘Sandbox,’ out May 15 independently via Slick Shoes. It’s their first album in over a decade, and with three singles now in circulation, the picture of what that return sounds like is getting clearer and more compelling with each release.

“King Kong” is a song about leaving Los Angeles, and frontman Tyson Ritter doesn’t dress it up. “I’m from a small town in Oklahoma, and I moved back home,” he explains. “When I got to L.A., I fell into an interesting crowd. It’s a town where everyone is chasing the same industry. There’s no real life about it for me that I experienced until I left.” That clarity of perspective comes through in the track itself, which opens on a creaking acoustic guitar and sunny vocal before building through a hypnotic pulse and slippery bassline into a biting chorus that lands the central line like a punch: “You’ll always be around to let me…DOWN.” Sky-scraping electric guitar cuts through in bursts, and the song earns every one of them.

“King Kong” follows previously released singles “Easy Come, Easy Go” and “Get This,” both of which have driven real momentum across streaming platforms, alternative radio, and viral charts. The three singles together paint a picture of a band that hasn’t just returned but has returned with something to say, drawing on lived experience and a creative partnership between Ritter and the band that feels genuinely re-energized rather than obligatory.

The All-American Rejects announced at SXSW last month that a second iteration of their House Party Tour is coming, building on the viral success and fan-driven intensity of the first run. The format, intimate and unpredictable performances in unique spaces, suits a band that has always thrived on direct connection with their audience. Additional dates and details are coming soon.

‘Sandbox’ arrives May 15. “King Kong” is out now on all major streaming platforms.

XG Announces Asia and Australia Dates for ‘XG World Tour: The Core’

Eric Alper
-
0
XG Announces Asia and Australia Dates for ‘XG World Tour: The Core’

XG are bringing ‘The Core’ to arenas across Asia and Australia this summer and fall, and the scale of the venues tells you everything about where this group stands right now. Frontier Touring and AEG Presents have announced five dates for the XG World Tour: The Core, kicking off July 19 in Bangkok at the Impact Arena and July 22 in Manila at the SM Mall of Asia Arena, before heading to Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena on October 12, Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena on October 14, and wrapping October 17 in Taipei at the Taipei Arena.

This is XG’s second world tour, built around ‘The Core – 核,’ their first full album, released this January to strong fan and critical reception. The group launched the tour in February with multiple sold-out dates across their home country of Japan, hitting Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, and more to massive demand before the international legs began taking shape. The album showcases the group’s signature blend of high-energy performance, powerful vocals, and sleek choreography, and the live show has been built to match that ambition at full arena scale.

The momentum behind this run didn’t appear out of nowhere. XG made their Coachella debut in 2025 as the only Japanese artist to perform that year, closing out the Sahara stage across both weekends with a showing that drew widespread attention and cemented their standing as a genuinely global act. Their live vocals and stage presence during that run earned them new audiences well beyond their existing fanbase, and the arena-level bookings on this tour reflect exactly that growth.

XG World Tour: The Core – Asia & Australia Dates:

July 19, Impact Arena, Bangkok

July 22, SM Mall of Asia Arena, Manila

October 12, Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne

October 14, Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney

October 17, Taipei Arena, Taipei

Nick Jonas Announces Six-City Intimate Performance Series Behind Critically Acclaimed Album ‘Sunday Best’

Eric Alper
-
0
Nick Jonas Announces Six-City Intimate Performance Series Behind Critically Acclaimed Album ‘Sunday Best’

Nick Jonas is taking ‘Sunday Best’ to the stage in a deliberate and personal way. The Golden Globe and Grammy-nominated artist has announced “A Night With Nick,” a limited six-city East Coast run of intimate performances this June that will feature songs from the new album alongside fan favorites from across his catalog. It’s a purposeful format choice for an album that’s his most unguarded work to date, and the smaller room setting should suit the material perfectly.

‘Sunday Best,’ Jonas’s first solo project in nearly five years, arrived to critical acclaim earlier this year and documents a significant personal chapter. Drawing from the past two years of his life as both a husband and father, the album leans into vulnerability and honest storytelling in ways Jonas hasn’t offered publicly before. Sonically it traces back to his musical roots and early years singing in church choirs, layering that warmth with rich, soulful arrangements and vivid lyricism that make it his most emotionally resonant work. The result is an album that earns its intimacy and demands to be heard in rooms where that intimacy can land properly.

The six dates run from June 4 in Niagara Falls through June 13 in Atlantic City, stopping in Hanover, Charlotte, Atlanta, and Danville along the way. Each venue reflects the close-quarters intention behind the series. Presales are live now, with general on-sale starting Friday, April 24 at 10 AM local time.

“A Night With Nick” 2026 Tour Dates:

June 4, Fallsview Casino Resort, Niagara Falls, ON

June 6, The HALL at Live!, Hanover, MD

June 7, The Fillmore Charlotte, Charlotte, NC

June 10, Tabernacle, Atlanta, GA

June 11, The Pantheon at Caesars Virginia, Danville, VA

June 13, Hard Rock, Atlantic City, NJ

Mötley Crüe Drummer Tommy Lee Reimagines ‘Tommyland: The Ride’ as ‘Tommyland Rides Again’ With Dolby Atmos Mix

Eric Alper
-
0
Mötley Crüe Drummer Tommy Lee Reimagines ‘Tommyland: The Ride’ as ‘Tommyland Rides Again’ With Dolby Atmos Mix

Twenty years on, Tommy Lee is revisiting one of his most wide-ranging solo statements and giving it the sonic treatment it deserved all along. ‘Tommyland Rides Again,’ a bold reimagining of his 2005 album ‘Tommyland: The Ride,’ arrives May 22 via BMG, mixed by Lee and Smiley Sean at Tommy’s own Dolby Atmos-certified studio. For the first time, the album will also be available across all major digital streaming platforms, including an immersive Dolby Atmos mix that opens up the record in ways that simply weren’t possible two decades ago. Physical formats on CD and vinyl follow August 21.

“The cover art invites you to take a ride inside my twisted musical world and experience its new life after 20 years,” Lee says. “And in Dolby Atmos.” The announcement arrives alongside the release of “Good Times” featuring Butch Walker, the original album’s lead single and the theme song for Tommy Lee Goes to College, complete with an HD upscale of its official music video. Walker was part of the original project, and his presence here ties the reimagining directly back to the source.

The reissue also introduces a brand new bonus track, “Stupid World,” featuring Chad Tepper, a former professional skateboarder turned alt-rock artist with a social following exceeding four million. Tepper’s 2023 single “Rockstar Dreams Like Tommy Lee” makes the pairing feel genuinely full-circle, the kind of collaboration that works because the influence runs in one clear direction. An accompanying music video arrives with the track.

The original ‘Tommyland: The Ride’ was released alongside Tommy’s book of the same name and his NBC hit series Tommy Lee Goes to College, and it pulled in an all-star cast that reflected just how wide Lee’s reach extended across rock, pop, and punk. Produced by Lee and Scott Humphrey, whose credits include Mötley Crüe, Rob Zombie, and Fuel, the album featured Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger, Good Charlotte’s Joel Madden, and Backstreet Boys’ Nick Carter among its collaborators. It was a snapshot of Lee at his most uncategorizable, and ‘Tommyland Rides Again’ makes the case that it deserves a second look.

Separately, Mötley Crüe’s “Return of the Carnival of Sins” North American tour celebrating the band’s 45th anniversary kicks off in July 2026. Lee is making the snare drums and cowbell he plays each night on the tour available as part of meet-and-greet packages, a detail that will mean everything to a certain kind of fan.

‘Tommyland Rides Again’ arrives May 22 digitally and on streaming, with physical formats following August 21 via BMG.

1...8910...3,608Page 9 of 3,608

Follow us on Instagram @thatericalper

That Eric Alper

Eric Alper is a 6-time nominee for Publicist of the Year during Canadian Music Week and has overseen the publicity campaigns for over 183 JUNO Award-nominated albums (and 16 in 2025), 45 Grammy-nominated albums, including 47 JUNO Award, 58 Canadian Folk Music Award, 126 Maple Blues Award-winning albums and is also truly honoured to work with some of the biggest and most important artists of our time.

Contact me: eric@thatericalper.com

Popular posts

Popular category

© Copyright - That Eric Alper