Highway Queen

2017 release, the third album from singer/songwriter Nikki Lane. Highway Queen sees the young Nashville rebel emerge as one of country and rock's most gifted songwriters. Produced by Lane and fellow singer-songwriter Jonathan Tyler, and recorded in Denton, Texas and Nashville, Tennessee, Highway Queen is an emotional tour-de-force. Blending potent lyrics, unbridled blues guitars and vintage '60s country-pop swagger, Lane's new music will resonate as easily with Black Keys and Lana Del Rey fans as those of Neil Young and Tom Petty. Highway Queen starts with the whiskey-soaked restlessness of 700,000 Rednecks, a rowdy call to action, and ends on the profoundly raw Forever Lasts Forever, where Lane belts freely, mourning a failed marriage the lighter shade of skin left behind from her wedding ring. Lane's journey to heartbreak takes exquisite turns. Companion is pure Everly Brothers' dreaminess I would spend a lifetime/ Playing catch you if I can. Elsewhere, she goes on a Vegas bender on the rollicking Jackpot, fights last-call blues Foolish Heart and tosses off brazen one-liners at a backroom piano Big Mouth.