Kevin Bronson on April 23rd, 2018

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Meet the new Blacktop Queen … not quite the same as the old Blacktop Queen. The (now) duo of singer-guitarist-producer Evan Ambrose and drummer Nate Lotz (whom you may recognize from the rhythm sections of Halsey and Ryan Adams) virtually vanished into the ether in 2017, and now we know why. After releasing three singles in 2016 — muscular tunes that seemed carved from a ’90s grunge/alt-rock quarry — Blacktop Queen was poised to release an EP. It was finished … and then, “We had a late night reality check, in Joshua Tree of all places,” Lotz says. They decided to trash the whole thing and start over. They had lost an original member, anyway (bassist Omar Ahmed), and, Lotz says, wanted to chart a course that felt more true to them.

“Desert” is the first in a batch of new songs. While their early work sounded of a certain era, the new single glides along with modern production flourishes, and maybe a bit of Britpop snarl. Lotz calls it “a song about losing your soul,” but somewhere out in Joshua Tree, he and Ambrose found theirs.

||| Stream: “Desert”

||| Live: Blacktop Queen play May 1 at Emo Nite at the Echo/Echoplex.