30 Records

Nikki Lane�s remarkably dazzling third album Highway Queen, out February 17, 2017, 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 Sixties 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�). Lane, a Greenville, South Carolina native, is a unique songwriter who didn�t take the traditional country artist path. Her backwoods roots are undercut by her chosen career as a fashion entrepreneur (she�s the owner of vintage clothing boutique High Class Hillbilly) who has lived � and been heartbroken in � Los Angeles, New York and Nashville. So it�s no surprise that her music seamlessly crosses musical genres with lyrics steeped in the doomed perseverance only a true dark horse romantic knows. Lane�s rapid rise in music is thanks to the fervent critical acclaim of her debut record Walk of Shame and 2014�s Dan Auerbach-produced All Or Nothin�.