Nicole Atkins Returns With ‘Drama,’ 1st New Album In 6 Years & Maps Fall 2026 Tour Dates

Nicole Atkins will release her seventh studio album and first full-length effort in over six years, Drama, via Sun Records / Wicked Game Records on September 18. Atkins also announced a fall tour in celebration of the 12-track LP.

Drama was recorded largely live over four days in Nashville with Grammy-nominated producer Pat Sansone (Wilco). The follow-up to 2020’s Italian Ice was born out of Atkins’ collaboration with Chris Isaak, who signed her as the inaugural artist on his Wicked Game Records imprint in partnership with Sun Records.

“I’ve been in love with Nicole’s songs for many years and have always followed her career,” explained Chris Isaak. “She and I are so simpatico when it comes to the music that inspires us, and she has a unique way of distilling that into her songwriting. She’s a true craftsman and an incredible singer. When it came time to start the label, she was my first thought. I’m so honored that she’s the label’s first signing, and I love ‘Drama!’”

Across its tracklist, Atkins was accompanied by her touring band’s guitarist John Paul Keith and drummer Danny Banks. Isaak also appears on the album, which features additional contributions from Sansone, Eric Slick (Dr. Dog), Dan Creamer (The Texas Gentlemen) and Scottish artist Davey Horne.

The album explores themes of isolation and long-distance relationships, while continuing Atkins’ pursuit of crafting “modern songs that could be part of the Great American Songbook.”

Atkins’ contemporary twist makes her far from a tribute artist. “I’m not trying to rehash or celebrate some bygone era,” Nicole Atkins said. “I’m just taking what I like melodically from the past and channeling it into my songs. I like to make them deeply personal. The question I come back to is – how do I make this sound exactly like me?”

Nicole Atkins will open her fall tour in support of Drama on October 9 at Columbus’ Rhumba Cafe. Additional October shows follow in Louisville and Indiana. After a one-month break, the tour resumes on November 13 in Columbia (Missouri). Atkins will then bring the trek across the Midwest, Northeast and Southeast before ending the outing in her current hometown of Nashville on December 3.

Scroll below for ticketing links, the Drama tracklist and the video for the album’s first single “When The Night Falls.”

Nicole Atkins unveiled “When The Night Falls,” the first single from her forthcoming album. The track arrived accompanied by an official music video filmed in Nashville and conceived by Atkins and the Sun Records team.

“I got together with my old friend Emery Dobyns to write a song together,” Atkins said of Drama’s gripping lead single. “We had these chords, and the feeling from the music reminded me of something I would’ve written for my first album, Neptune City, and I thought about where I was back then. The toxic love affair. And tying it into who and where I am now, and being able to write a song about terrible love from a place of power. Some would call it growth. I’m just still in love with the ‘sound’ of heartache. It gets me like no other.”

Watch Nicole Atkins’ “When The Night Falls” video below:

Drama Tracklist

1. Trippin’ on Teardrops
2. Singing in the Mirror
3. Like a Stranger
4. When the Night Falls
5. Cue the Symphony
6. Like It’s The First Time
7. Curtain Call
8. For No One
9. Real Life
10. Crying Out Loud
11. Danny
12. Softly, As You Were