Riffs rock, love hurts: Lucas Ferraz unleashes new album
Luxembourg-based Brazilian rocker Lucas Ferraz is back with Riffs & Love, an 11-track blast of hard-rock guitars, raw emotion and complicated feelings. And if the album’s guitars sound like they’re giving everything they’ve got, well, one of them literally was!
Love hurts, guitars roar, and sometimes, the two go together rather beautifully. Just ask Lucas Ferraz, whose new album Riffs & Love is set for release on 7 November 2026.
Blending the punch of hard rock with grunge grit, punk energy and a healthy dose of melody, Ferraz’s second solo studio album explores the messy business of being human. It’s about love, desire, loss, anger and vulnerability, all wrapped up in guitar-driven rock that doesn't pull any punches.
“Riffs & Love is probably the best way to describe my songwriting: heavy, aggressive guitars mixed with very personal stories about love, desire, loss and the things that drive us a little crazy,” says Lucas. “There’s anger and vulnerability in these songs, but also a lot of melody. All those feelings belong together.”
This isn't an album about choosing between wearing your heart on your sleeve and turning your amp up. It's about doing both at once.
Two sides of the same rock ’n’ roll coin
The title Riffs & Love sums up the album's central idea: we’re all walking contradictions. We can be strong and sensitive, passionate and angry, hopeless romantics one minute and completely off the rails the next.
Lucas channels those opposing forces into 11 tracks that balance muscular guitar work with deeply personal storytelling. Rather than keeping the heavy stuff and the heartfelt stuff in separate corners, he lets them collide.
Even the cover artwork, created by Alexandre Rex, plays with this idea. Featuring siamese-sister imagery, it captures the tension between love and hate, connection and conflict, so two forces bound together, whether they like it or not. It's a fitting visual for a record that embraces the beautiful mess of human emotions.
A transatlantic collaboration and one unlucky amp
There's a Brazilian-Luxembourgish connection at the heart of Riffs & Love. Lucas produced the album alongside longtime collaborator Tadeu Mascarenhas, a childhood friend with whom he first started playing rock music back in the 1990s.
The pair worked between Salvador, Bahia, and Luxembourg, exchanging recordings across the Atlantic. Core sessions took place at Casa das Máquinas in Salvador, with additional vocals and guitars recorded in Lucas's private studio.
“There's something special about making a record with someone who has known you since those early days and understands where you're coming from musically,” Lucas explains.
The album features Martin Mendonça on guitar, Larriri Vasconcelos on bass, Alan Abreu on drums and Mascarenhas on keyboards, alongside Ferraz on vocals and guitars.
And then there's the story of Mendonça's guitar amp, which decided to call it a day during the recording sessions. Rather than quietly slipping away, it went out in a blaze of glory: several guitar recordings captured the amp in its final moments.
So, if some of the album's guitar tones sound particularly fierce, that's because one piece of equipment was quite literally giving it everything it had left!
From blazing horns to a little madness
The road to Riffs & Love began with the release of first single “On Fire” on 19 June 2026. Driven by punchy guitars and a brass section featuring João Teoria on trumpet, Fernando Rocha on trombone and Kiko Souza on baritone saxophone, the track adds a colourful twist to Lucas's rock ’n’ roll foundations without losing any of its bite.
Second single “I'm Insane” followed on 18 September, offering another taste of the album before its full release.
The new record follows Lucas's 2023 solo debut, Demons in My Head, his 2025 LOVE EP and the 2026 concert album Demons in My Head – Live in Luxembourg. Each release has helped shape a solo career that combines the energy of a live rock show with a more personal songwriting approach.
Luxembourg audiences have already had a taste of his live firepower. On 8 July 2026, Ferraz took to the LuxExpo Open Air stage as support for Lenny Kravitz, performing in front of about 10,000 people. His busy summer also included appearances at Made in Luxembourg, Blues Express, Rock N’ Owl and the Blues ’n’ Jazz Rallye.
Along the way, he's shared bills with an impressive list of rock heavyweights, including Slash featuring Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators, Deep Purple, The Hollywood Vampires, Steel Panther, Jane's Addiction, Marcus King, Airbourne, Steve Lukather and Richie Kotzen.
Catch the riffs live in Dudelange
Of course, an album like Riffs & Love deserves to be heard at full volume. Ferraz will celebrate its release with a concert at Opderschmelz in Dudelange on 14 November 2026, bringing the record's mix of hard-hitting rock and emotional storytelling to the stage.
The show will feature the full rock experience, with a special acoustic passage thrown into the mix, proof that even the loudest rockers sometimes need to turn things down and let the feelings do the talking.
As Lucas puts it: “This record is about accepting that we are never made of only one thing. We can carry love and anger, strength and vulnerability, sometimes at exactly the same moment.”
Perhaps that's the beauty of Riffs & Love: it doesn't ask you to pick a side. It simply invites you to feel everything, turn up the volume and embrace the contradictions.
Album: Riffs & Love by Lucas Ferraz release on 7 November 2026 digitally on Spotify (above), Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, and Tidal.
Order the vinyl on the Lucas Ferraz website! Live show: 14 November 2026 at Opderschmelz, Dudelange, with support act Boy From Home.
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