Leopard Skin

Leopard Skin is the fifteenth L.A. Guns studio album, released by Cleopatra Records on 4 April 2025. It is the fifth the band has made since Phil Lewis and Tracii Guns came back together in 2017 — five records in seven years, which says something in itself about where this band has been lately. Where the two albums before it leaned metallic, this one returns to the sleazy rock and roll the band was built on. "Taste It" opens with that in plain sight: a strutting, Stones-shaped riff with Lewis singing over the top of it. King Records, introducing the Japanese edition, called it a record on which "the passion of the early days and hard rock and roll explode", and framed it as the band's return to the Metal Frontier imprint. The Japanese edition came out on 23 April through King Records / Metal Frontier as KICP-4098 at ¥3,300 including tax. It carries the ten international tracks plus an acoustic mix of "The Masquerade" as a Japan-only bonus, for eleven songs, with a commentary booklet and translated lyrics. Cleopatra's own channel posted music videos for "Taste It" and "Lucky Motherfucker". On 10 July that year the band played a launch show for the album at the Guild Theatre in Menlo Park, California — the night that became the following year's concert album, Live from the Guild Theatre.