Imelda May's 'Life Love Flesh Blood' Out on Verve 4/7

Additionally, W Magazine recently premiered the video for the album's first single, "Call Me," hailing the track as a "sweet, spare lament," while the Daily Mail called it "stylish and extremely moving." Watch/share the video HERE. May also recently performed the album track "Black Tears" on "Jools Holland's Annual Hootenanny" on New Year's Eve, which can be viewed/shared HERE. May's performance was the most-watched segment of the evening with 250,000 YouTube views to date, plus it is the second most viewed video on the BBC Music YouTube Channel since October.

Produced by the legendary T Bone Burnett, the album marks a new direction for May who, in the time since her 2014 release Tribal, ended her marriage of eighteen years. Life, Love, Flesh, Blood is May's most autobiographical record to date; Burnett says of May, "When I first happened onto her music, she was a punky Irish Rockabilly singer with a great band. I was intrigued by her deep feeling for and understanding of that American art form, much of which, of course, had originated in Ireland. When I ran across her several years later, she had gone through a change of lives and was writing about it with a wild intensity and singing about it in the most open hearted way." Adds May, "It's therapy, like keeping a diary that a lot of people read. Some of my favorite songs don't say much, but they reveal everything."

May's new musical direction accompanies an overarching stylistic change for the established singer. "I always loved the '50s rockabilly style but there was a point where I felt I was almost dressing up as Imelda May," she notes. "It was as if I was getting into character for a gig. And I didn't want to do that anymore. This is me."

Life, Love, Flesh, Blood features contributions from guitar hero Jeff Beck and piano maestro Jools Holland, as well as an accomplished group of backing musicians including the core trio of guitarist Marc Ribot (Tom Waits, Elvis Costello), drummer Jay Bellerose (Elton John & Leon Russell, Ray Lamontagne) and bassist Zach Dawes (The Last Shadow Puppets, Mini Mansions), the same band that recorded Robert Plant and Alison Krauss' Raising Sand. Recorded over seven days in Los Angeles, the album was written over the course of May's tumultuous past year and includes writing contributions from Angelo Petragalia (Kings of Leon) and Paul Moak (The Blind Boys of Alabama, Martha Wainwright). May states that she began writing songs for the album with "no preconceived notions of where it was going to go. My plan was to have no plan because it was freedom. It was liberating."

May's previous records have seen success both in the U.S. as well as in Europe. Tribaldebuted at #1 in Ireland and #3 in the UK. The Guardian gave the album four stars, saying "This album is no time capsule; it's fresh and embracing..." while The Timespraised May's "raw, impassioned vocals." Her previous release, 2010's Mayhem, also received critical acclaim with The Los Angeles Times commenting, "Ireland-born Imelda May's career is fostered by paying homage to legends like Buddy Holly and Johnny Cash and, more importantly, furthering rockabilly's cross-pollination into New Orleans jazz, delta blues and amp-splitting punk aggression." Mayhem went Platinum in Ireland and Gold in the U.K., while May has seen performances on "Later...With Jools Holland," "Conan," "and an impressive four performances on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," to name a few.

Artwork photo credit: Max Dodson