The Buttshakers bring us "Lessons In Love" next month on Belgium/Netherlands tour

With their roots planted firmly in the rich soil of Afro-American music, The Buttshakers continue to carve out a distinct path through soul. On Lessons In Love, their third release with Underdog Records, the band moves beyond the raw urgency of earlier work, embracing a deeper, more measured sound—one steeped in love, tempered by experience, and carried gently through the blues. Guided by the voice of Ciara Thompson, they lean into something more intimate, where emotion settles into clarity and the search, even in a restless world, points toward light.

There’s a sense of wide-open space in their music, as if each song stretches toward the horizon. The Buttshakers travel a road long worn by soul’s greats, yet they walk it in their own way, balancing weight and grace. Drawing from the lineage of artists like Curtis Mayfield and Al Green, Lessons In Love holds both tension and tenderness—where social undercurrents and personal truths meet, and where compassion begins to take the place of fury.

It’s through Thompson’s voice—now more restrained, yet more revealing—that the journey unfolds. The band moves fluidly between moods: from the stripped-back warmth of acoustic reflections to the pulse of electric grooves and restless rhythms. Along the way, their sound gathers dust and depth, shaped by distance traveled and stories carried.

What remains is a music that feels lived-in and searching, grounded in the spirit of 60s and 70s soul while speaking clearly to the present. The Buttshakers don’t chase reinvention so much as resonance—finding light in the cracks, and offering it forward.