Alt-country great Nikki Lane has announced her first album in over five years, Denim & Diamonds, which was produced and mixed by Josh Homme, and was made with a band featuring Josh's Queens of the Stone Age bandmates Alain Johannes (guitar), Dean Fertita (organ), and Michael Shuman (bass), plus drums from Josh's pal Matt Helders of Arctic Monkeys and Autolux/Jack White member Carla Azar, and Nikki's pedal steel player Matthew Pynn. Speaking about the album, she says, "There is a song that didn’t make the album with the lyrics ‘sometimes you gotta run away to live a life that you can write a song about.’ Prior to this album, I was so focused on writing about life on the road, that I just didn’t have the headspace to write about the road that got me here."
The album arrives September 23 via New West (pre-order), and the first single is "First High," a driving country rocker that Nikki says "is about chasing that feeling of the first roller coaster, the first drag of a cigarette, that first kiss. Those moments are harder to come by the older we get, yet only get better each time." The song definitely gives off that feeling, and so does the video, which Nikki adds "captures that feeling of being young in a small town on a summer day, and the lack of inhibition that came with it." Check it out below.