America releases first new album in eight years

America released their first new album in eight years on January 16th, titled Here & Now. The double disc collection includes one CD featuring 12 new tracks co-produced by Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha and Fountains Of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger. The set comes with a second, bonus live CD featuring the band's '70s classics such as "Sister Golden Hair," "A Horse With No Name," "I Need You," "Ventura Highway," "Muskrat Love," and others.

The band's Dewey Bunnell told us that despite using a state-of-the-art studio with younger producers guiding the project, he and partner Gerry Beckley insisted on keeping the album sounding fresh and natural: "Just things like real drums, real bass, real instruments, like you say. It's just, to me, it sounds bizarre that that's a special thing, but so many recordings are done now, you know that's not really the organic thing."

America performed on Wednesday, January 17th, in New York City's Times Square at B.B. King's Blues Club.