The boys are back — not in town, but in your speakers at least. Thin Lizzy have announced their first new album since 1983’s Thunder And Lightning. When it arrives in January, The Acoustic Sessions will end a 42-year drought for new Thin Lizzy albums, but the material is not exactly new. As you may have inferred from the title, album features new acoustic recordings of songs from the first three Thin Lizzy LPs, including never-before-heard vocals from the late Phil Lynott, who passed away in 1986.

As Guitar Player points out, the band’s Eric Bell shared some thoughts on the new release:

I remember recording “Eire” from our debut album, Thin Lizzy, in 1971. I wrote the main guitar part first on acoustic and then we built it up from there. I played the 12-string acoustic throughout the track and introduced the electric guitar on top.

This was useful in the studio in Belfast recently where we recorded fresh guitar parts to allow us to create new Thin Lizzy acoustic versions of some of our favorite songs, by recreating those original acoustic parts and adding the vocals which Philip laid down on the day and those original drum parts which Brian [Downey] came up with in the original recording sessions.

Our first taste of The Acoustic Sessions is the standard “Whiskey In The Jar,” which you can hear below.

The Acoustic Sessions is out 1/25 on Decca. Pre-order it here.