There’s a slightly embarrassing admission I need to make before we get into The Damn Truth’s fourth album. Their 2021 record Now or Nowhere was not merely well received here at The Rockpit — it was our Album of the Year, hitting Number One on our end-of-year list in what was a particularly strong year for Rock and Roll. So naturally, when the Canadian band finally followed it up with their self-titled fourth album in 2025, I was keen to hear what came next, sadly no one bothered to send us the bloody thing!
Somehow The Damn Truth slipped past The Rockpit entirely when it was originally released last year, which is rather disappointing considering how loudly we’d been banging the drum for the band. Thankfully, that changes with the announcement that The Damn Truth have signed with Frontiers Music Srl, who will give the album its first worldwide physical release on September 11. And Frontiers always look after us! So, a year late, here we finally are.
The question, of course, is a pretty simple one: is it as good as Now or Nowhere? The damn truth is it’s damn close.
Since 2021, The Damn Truth have gone on to even greater things. They’ve toured relentlessly, built an increasingly impressive international audience and continued to develop into one of those increasingly rare modern Rock bands capable of taking the sounds and spirit of the past without ever feeling like some carefully assembled retro exercise.
And on album number four they sound bigger, more confident and, perhaps most importantly, completely comfortable in their own skin.
It certainly doesn’t hurt having Bob Rock behind the desk again. His fingerprints are all over the record without overwhelming the personality of the band. The production is huge when it needs to be, but there’s still dirt under the fingernails. The guitars breathe, the rhythm section has weight and Lee-la Baum’s remarkable voice remains right at the heart of everything.
There’s swagger here. There’s soul. There’s blues. There’s psychedelia. There are moments of vulnerability and others where The Damn Truth simply sound like a great Rock and Roll band turning the amplifiers up and letting rip.
And it starts wonderfully with ‘Be Somebody’, a huge opening statement that contains so much of what makes The Damn Truth special. There’s that glorious late-60s/early-70s looseness to it, but Bob Rock gives everything a thoroughly modern punch. Lee-la moves from restraint to full-throated power as the song grows around her, and it’s big, soulful and wonderfully alive. If you wanted one song to introduce somebody to this band, you could do considerably worse.
‘I Just Gotta Let You Know’ digs immediately into that bluesy Rock and Roll groove that has always suited them so well. There’s plenty of space in the arrangement and that’s important — nobody is fighting to fill every second. Instead, the groove does the work. There’s an almost vintage Stones-like looseness underneath it all, but once again it’s Lee-la’s vocal that gives the song its identity. It’s exactly the sort of track that makes you imagine how good these guys must sound when they’re standing six feet in front of you.
Then comes ‘Love Outta Luck’, and it’s one of my favourites. This one has attitude pouring out of it. The guitars bite hard, the rhythm section pushes things along beautifully and there’s a dirty little swagger at its heart that makes it almost impossible not to move to. This is where The Damn Truth’s ability to take classic influences and turn them into something distinctly their own really shines. It feels old, new and timeless all at once, and that’s a difficult trick to pull off.
‘If I Don’t Make It Home’ sees the record take a breath and reveals another side of the band. There’s something beautifully reflective about it, atmospheric without becoming overly dramatic and emotional without reaching for the obvious clichés. Baum’s vocal is particularly impressive because she understands that sometimes pulling back can hit considerably harder than simply trying to blow the roof off. It’s one of the album’s emotional high points.
‘Better This Way’ brings us back to another cracking piece of classic-minded Rock and Roll. There’s a lovely sense of movement here, with the guitars and vocal bouncing off one another rather than simply following the same path. It’s one of those songs that becomes more addictive with every listen and another reminder of just how strong The Damn Truth have become as songwriters. There isn’t an ounce of unnecessary fat on it.
There’s a darker shade to ‘Mirror Mirror’ that works wonderfully at this point in the record. The atmosphere thickens, the guitars feel heavier and Baum gets the opportunity to stretch that extraordinary voice over something a little more brooding. It’s not necessarily the song that jumps out first time through, but it’s precisely the sort of track that makes an album worth returning to. After a few spins it really gets under the skin.
And then we have ‘All Night Long’ — not exactly a title Rock and Roll has been afraid of over the years! Thankfully The Damn Truth have enough personality to make it their own. This is the band loosening the shoulders again: direct, energetic and built around a wonderfully infectious groove. You can almost smell the beer and feel the sticky club floor. There’s nothing complicated about what makes it work, but then sometimes great Rock and Roll really doesn’t need to be complicated.
And then we get ‘The Willow’.
Frontiers have understandably chosen a newly remastered 2026 version of the track to lead this Deluxe Edition campaign, and it’s easy to understand why. This is The Damn Truth stretching out emotionally and atmospherically. There’s vulnerability here, but also enormous strength. The song gradually unfolds rather than immediately showing you everything it has, and Baum delivers one of the finest vocal performances on the album.
There’s something almost spiritual about it. The band’s description of the willow as an image of endurance — deeply rooted but constantly moving with the wind — fits perfectly. More importantly, you don’t need the explanation for the song to work. The emotion is already there in the music. Beautiful stuff.
After all that atmosphere, ‘Addicted’ brings the temperature straight back up. There’s urgency here, along with another irresistible guitar groove. It’s rawer, tougher and carries precisely the sort of attitude the title suggests. Another track that should absolutely kill live.
‘Killer Whale’ might have the most intriguing title on the record and provides one of its more interesting musical turns. There’s a slightly different texture here, with the band allowing themselves room to explore rather than simply delivering another straight-ahead rocker. That’s important because by this point The Damn Truth has established its core sound so effectively that something a little less predictable gives the latter stages of the album extra colour.
And then ‘The Dying Dove’ brings the original album to a close in suitably impressive fashion. It has the weight and atmosphere that a final track deserves, with a genuine sense of culmination rather than simply feeling like another song happened to be placed at the end of the running order. It’s emotive, spacious and beautifully performed, leaving you with that wonderful urge to go straight back to the beginning and start the whole thing again.
And for me that’s always one of the greatest compliments you can give an album.
Which brings us to the actual Deluxe bit.
‘Be Somebody – Live at Hotel2Tango’ is very good. It’s clear The Damn Truth are an excellent live band (We’ve reviewed them multiple times), the song itself is one of the strongest on the record and hearing a more immediate version certainly has value. But let’s be serious. One live version of a song already on the album? That’s it for extras?
As a bonus for anyone discovering The Damn Truth for the first time through Frontiers, absolutely. As an incentive for somebody who bought the original album only a year ago to put their hand in their pocket and buy it all over again? Not really. But that’s really the only issue I have with this release. Taken purely as an album, The Damn Truth is excellent. In fact, finally getting to hear it has left me even more irritated that nobody sent it to us in 2025.
The Damn Truth have continued the trajectory we heard on Now or Nowhere, but they’re not simply trying to recreate that record. Four albums in, this sounds like a band increasingly sure about exactly what it wants to be. Bob Rock has helped give the songs scale and clarity, but importantly he hasn’t polished away the grit, personality or honesty that made us fall for the band in the first place. And at the heart of it all Lee-la Baum remains an absolutely magnetic vocalist.
So is The Damn Truth better than Now or Nowhere, our Number One album of 2021? I don’t think it quite gets there. But bloody hell, it’s damn close. There are moments here that equal anything the band has recorded, and as a complete album it’s remarkably consistent. If Now or Nowhere was the record that convinced us The Damn Truth were something special, this is the sound of that promise being fulfilled.
The slightly stranger question is whether this Deluxe Edition is worth buying. If you missed the album in 2025, then that’s easy: absolutely. Frontiers giving The Damn Truth a proper worldwide physical release — including four vinyl variants — should finally put the record in front of plenty of people who didn’t get the opportunity first time around. If you already bought it last year, though, the addition of Be Somebody – Live at Hotel2Tango simply isn’t enough to have me reaching into my pocket again a mere twelve months later. A handful of live tracks, demos, unreleased songs or alternate versions might have made the word ‘Deluxe’ feel rather more substantial. Still, that’s criticism of the package rather than the music.
At the end of the day sat on the new label, with new vinyl colours and a bonus track this sits as one hell of a Rock and Roll record: and after inexplicably missing it the first time around, I’m very glad Frontiers finally made sure it landed on The Rockpit desk.
9/10
August 2026
07 Aug – Mont-Tremblant, Mont-Tremblant, QC, Canada
08 Aug – FESTIMUSIK, Stanstead, QC, Canada
22 Aug – Lost & Sound Festival, Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry, ON, Canada
28 Aug – The Live Rooms, Chester, UK
29 Aug – Stonedead Festival, Newark, UK
30 Aug – Nightrain, Bradford, UK
September 2026
01 Sep – The Globe, Cardiff, UK
02 Sep – Cavern, Exeter, UK
03 Sep – The Craufurd Arms, Milton Keynes, UK
04 Sep – Bear Cave, Bournemouth, UK
06 Sep – The Waterloo Music Bar, Blackpool, UK
THE FINAL COUNTDOWN – 40TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR
Featuring Special Guests: THE DAMN TRUTH
30 September – Glasgow, SEC Armadillo, UK
2 October – Wolverhampton, Civic Hall, UK
3 October – London, Eventim Apollo, UK
5 October – Arnhem, Musis Sacrum, Netherlands
6 October – Paris, L’Olympia, France
08 October – Barcelona, Poble Espanyol, Spain
09 October – Bilbao, Arena Miribilla, Spain
10 October – Madrid, La Cubierta, Spain
12 October – Lausanne, Salle Métropole, Switzerland
13 October – Zurich, Volkshaus, Switzerland
14 October – Milan, Alcatraz, Italy
16 October – Stuttgart, Liederhalle, Germany
17 October – Vienna, Gasometer, Austria
19 October – Berlin, Admiralspalast, Germany
20 October – Warsaw, COS Torwar, Poland
22 October – Frederiksberg, Falconer Salen, Denmark
23 October – Gothenburg, Sweden
24 October – Stockholm, Sweden
26 October – Oslo, Sentrum Scene, Norway
