Night Beats (Fuzz Club/Cooking Vinyl) share new single "Hell In Texas"

With the arrival of the ‘Outlaw R&B’ LP just around the corner, Night Beats is today sharing the new single ‘Hell In Texas’ – the latest to be lifted from the forthcoming album due out June 4th via Fuzz Club Records. Night Beats’ inbound LP is their fifth to date and sees Danny Lee Blackwell steer the band back to its raw, acid-fried roots in a blaze of technicolour glory. It follows 2019’s ‘Myth Of A Man’ LP (Heavenly Recordings) and last year’s ‘That’s All You Got’ 7” featuring Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Robert Levon Been. A haunting country ballad to add to the already expansive range found within ‘Outlaw R&B’, you can now stream ‘Hell In Texas’.

Delivered through Night Beats’ finely-tuned medium of psychedelic R&B, ‘Hell In Texas’ recants Abrahamic gospel country by way of Marty Robbins, Hank Williams and Ernest Tubb. Coupled with a steady outlaw country backing band of his own creation, Blackwell’s haunting voice lingers with Wanda Jackson-like allure. He says of the song: “Inspired by a mysterious postcard found in a curiosity shop in Texas, I built the story of a jealous Satan making a deal with God over land in Texas.” Raised by Hindu and Catholic parents, Blackwell’s religious upbringing is something that constantly appears throughout his work: “I’d usually skip ahead in Bible study as a kid, straight to the most psychedelic verses in Revelation or Leviticus”.

Made during the height of the California wildfires (where Blackwell now resides), rioting in the streets and a nation in lockdown, Blackwell describes ‘Outlaw R&B’ as a record “bathed in post-apocalyptic bliss”. Outlining the album’s mission statement, he continues: “Outlaw R&B is music for the borderless, the free, the outcasts and the forgotten. Through this medium you escape the confines of mental feudalism and bask in the euphoric glow of psychedelic R&B. The outlaw is the runner. Those whose minds aren’t sold by perfect pitch and clean fingernails.”

With four albums now behind them – their self-titled 2011 debut, 2013’s ‘Sonic Bloom’, 2016’s ‘Who Sold My Generation’ and 2019’s ‘Myth of A Man’ – Night Beats have garnered a reputation as one of the finest purveyors of contemporary rock’n’roll hedonism around. They’ve clocked up critical acclaim, toured across North and South America, Europe, Asia and South Africa and shared the stage with the likes of The Black Angels, Roky Erickson, The Jesus and Mary Chain, BRMC, The Zombies, Black Lips, Ty Segall and Thee Oh Sees, among many others. Their fifth album, ‘Outlaw R&B’, arrives June 4th on London-based label Fuzz Club Records.