Galactic and Irma Thomas Audience with the Queen 180g LP (Clear with White Smoke Vinyl)

Over the course of three decades, Galactic has become a cornerstone of New Orleans' dynamic music landscape – the same world that brought them together in the '90s as a late-night funk outfit steeped in the unique sounds of their city.

The musically adventurous group has evolved continuously since then, thanks in part to their penchant for collaborating with a wildly diverse array of guest artists. While those experiences have provided a steady stream of new musical perspectives and ideas to the group's core sound, other elements of their work – like their new role as stewards of the historic New Orleans music venue Tipitina's – have deepened their relationship with their city and its music community through the years, giving the band an even richer foundation for their ongoing explorations of new creative terrain.

Audience with the Queen, Galactic's 2025 studio album with New Orleans rhythm and blues legend Irma Thomas, exemplifies all of that progress and more. The album features Thomas' Grammy-winning vocals on every track, marking a departure from their 10 previous studio LPs, most of which revolved around the band's core instrumentalists – Ben Ellman (saxophones, harmonica), Rob Mercurio (bass), Stanton Moore (drums), Jeff Raines (guitar) and Rich Vogel (keyboards) – accompanied by a mix of different vocalists, including Anjelika "Jelly" Joseph and Josh Cagler.

Here, the 83-year-old Thomas retains the spotlight across nine tracks, all of which the band wrote specifically for her famously warm, blues-drenched voice. Thomas worked with producers Ellman and Mercurio to select and fine-tune the lyrics and other details from there, finding her own way inside the story of each song.

"We wanted to contemporize the whole thing, bring her into our sound," Mercurio explains. The result is a career-defining milestone for the band and a testament to what's possible when they open up their progressive sound to an artist who's helped shape the canon of modern New Orleans music the way Thomas has.

Known as the "Soul Queen of New Orleans," Thomas' first big splash in music came with 1959's Billboard charting "Don't Mess with My Man." A string of unforgettable hits recorded with producer Allen Toussaint followed, including "It's Raining" and "Wish Someone Would Care," which hit No. 17 on Billboard's pop charts. By the time her moving post-Katrina reflection After the Rain won a Best Contemporary Blues Album Grammy in 2007, Thomas' influence was firmly entrenched in New Orleans and had long since spanned the globe, inspiring, among other things, the Rolling Stones to record an almost note-for-note take on her 1964 rendition of "Time Is On My Side."

"We wanted every song to feel real coming from Irma Thomas, given the life she's lived," says Mercurio, who recalls being awestruck by "the way she internalizes a song" to tell its story from her heart.

Thomas does just that on the album's fiery first single, "Lady Liberty," a poignant track about racially fueled violence and social justice. "Another black man shot down last night and they keep adding up / Is this the world that we're living in? The one we raise our children in? / Lord save us all, Lady Liberty took a fall," Thomas sings in the chorus. The bridge offers a path towards change, bolstered by a hooky horn riff, growling guitar lines and the unbreakably tight ensemble playing that's long been Galactic's signature.

While "Lady Liberty" comments on the world at large, the buoyant "Where I Belong" puts us squarely in Thomas' world as she reflects on an incredible life in music. From her vocal growls to the bright and joyful tone of her rich contralto, Thomas exudes positive energy and strength against the backdrop of high-energy horn lines. During a spoken word pause sheathed in barely-there effects, Thomas assures us she still loves what she does and has no plans to stop. When she belts out, "I still got a love affair / with the sound of music in the air," it's hard not to feel her elation.

On the album's opener, a reimagined take on Nancy Wilson's "How Glad I Am," organ peels filter through a vocal harmony like light through stained glass, leading the melody into an almost country lilt. Elsewhere on the diverse set, "Puppet on Your String" unfurls a complex love-gone-wrong narrative set to a retro-tinged beat and laced with gorgeous guitar work.