Goodnight Rhonda Lee by Nicole Atkins

Goodnight Rhonda Lee, Nicole Atkins's fourth studio album, came out on Single Lock Records in July 2017, three years after Slow Phaser had won her good notices for its songwriting and production. The singer from Neptune, New Jersey has always been out of step with her own time, in the best way: her heart belongs to 1950s crooners, soul, 1960s psychedelia and the Brill Building, and she's drawn comparisons to Roy Orbison.

"Darkness Falls So Quiet" is the song from it that reached the countdowns, and its title alone sounds like it wandered in from one of those old records she grew up on, the Ronettes and Johnny Cash among them. Atkins took the new songs out on the road before the album even dropped, a 22-city spring run that opened in Fort Worth, Texas and wrapped at the Mountain Jam festival.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.