That Nashville Sound Saturday Newsbytes: New Projects From Phil Vassar, Miranda Lambert, Hunter Hayes, Old Dominion and Midland

Welcome to the weekend- we've got a number of new album announcements out in the last day or two, so without further ado...

- Phil Vassar will be releasing a new EP right after the first of the year called Stripped Down. It will feature new material as well as a cover of “Postmarked Birmingham,” which was recorded by Blackhawk, and was co-written by Vassar along with Don Sampson.  “We’re peeling back the music to the core with just a piano and guitar, so we can give fans an intimate evening of conversation and music. It’s how these songs were written and I think it will be a fun, unique experience,” Vassar shared.

- Miranda Lambert’s hotly anticipated seventh studio album Wildcard will arrive Nov. 1 on Vanner Records/RCA Records Nashville. “When people listen to this record, I want them to know that I see them and hear them,” said Lambert. “I feel you, because I’m just a girl from East Texas, writing about all the things that go on in my world and in the worlds of people around me. I want people to get along, you know, just be who you are, own it and move on from the moments you couldn’t live in.” The track listing includes a who's-who of amazing songwriters. 

01. White Trash (Miranda Lambert, Luke Dick, Natalie Hemby, Laura Veltz)
02. Mess With My Head (Miranda Lambert, Luke Dick, Natalie Hemby)
03. It All Comes Out in the Wash (Miranda Lambert, Hillary Lindsey, Lori McKenna, Liz Rose)
04. Settling Down (Miranda Lambert, Luke Dick, Natalie Hemby)
05. Holy Water (Miranda Lambert, Brent Cobb, Mike Harris, Joshua Taylor)
06. Way Too Pretty for Prison [feat. Maren Morris] (Miranda Lambert, Hillary Lindsey, Lori McKenna, Liz Rose)
07. Locomotive (Miranda Lambert, Ashley Monroe, K.S. Rhoads)
08. Bluebird (Miranda Lambert, Luke Dick, Natalie Hemby)
09. How Dare You Love (Miranda Lambert, Jamie Kinney, Ashley Monroe)
10. Fire Escape (Miranda Lambert, Hillary Lindsey, Lori McKenna, Liz Rose)
11. Pretty Bitchin’ (Miranda Lambert, Luke Dick, Natalie Hemby, Jon Randall)
12. Tequila Does (Miranda Lambert, Jack Ingram, Jon Randall)
13. Track Record (Miranda Lambert, Hillary Lindsey, Lori McKenna, Liz Rose)
14. Dark Bars (Miranda Lambert, Liz Rose)

-  Multi-instrumentalist Hunter Hayes revealed his new album Wild Blue would be released immediately to the fans months earlier than expected, and was released yesterday. Released on longtime label Warner Music  Nashville, his brand new 10-song album, Wild Blue, featuring the current single “Heartbreak,” is available on digital platforms everywhere and is already number one on the iTunes Country Chart. “I wanted Wild Blue to be a place for people to go, not just a series of songs but a world to dive into, but not so specific that you cannot finish the story yourself,” Hayes revealed to USA Today. “I knew that I wanted it to be about flying, or simply the feeling of flying, turbulence included…I was going through a lot of shifts in my life and I knew that the letting go of those things was the only way that I was going to grow and learn how to be human again.”

1. Madness (Hunter Hayes, Sam Ellis, Sara Haze)
2. Wild Blue (Hunter Hayes, Troy Verges, Gordie Sampson)
3. Heartbreak (Hunter Hayes, Thomas “Tawgs” Salter, Gordie Sampson, Simon Wilcox)
4. One Good Reason (Hunter Hayes, Sam Ellis)
5. Dear God (Hunter Hayes, Andy Grammer, Dave Spencer)*
6. Loving You (Hunter Hayes, Jordan Reynolds, Dave Barnes)
7. My Song Too (Hunter Hayes, Jordan Reynolds, Dave Barnes)
8. One Shot (Hunter Hayes)**
9. Night and Day (Hunter Hayes, Derrick Southerland, Sam Ellis)
10. Still (Hunter Hayes, Troy Verges, Tommee Profitt)

-  Old Dominion have announced the details for their long awaited and highly anticipated new album. The album will be self-titled and will be released on October 25th. Lead singer Matt Ramsey has this to say about the new project, "It’s a self-titled album, so we’ve been kind of slowly releasing some songs off of it so everybody can get a little bit of a taste of what it’s gonna sound like. It sounds like us, but it’s definitely gone a little bit of a different direction than it has in the past. But we still love the craft of writing songs and take great care in that, so we’re very proud of all of these songs. I think they just expand who we are as a band, at least we think that way. I think it’s just a natural evolution of who we are as a band and who we are as men, and the period of our lives that we’re in. I think we’ve just become that way – a little bit more introspective and a little bit more honest in our writing. And those were the songs that spoke to us a little bit more. Because we’ve certainly written our fair share of catchy ditties too. So I think those were just the songs that spoke to us a little bit more as we were recording this album.

1. Make It Sweet
2. Smooth Sailing
3. One Man Band
4. Never Be Sorry
5. My Heart Is a Bar
6. Midnight Mess Around
7. Do It With Me
8. Hear You Now
9. I’ll Roll
10. American Style
11. Paint the Grass Green
12. Some People Do

And last, but certainly not least, Midland has a new music video for their new song, "Fast Hearts and Slow Towns":