On November 17 John Mayer will be releasing “Battle Studies,” his fourth full length studio album. The set follows “Continuum,” his critically acclaimed release from 2006. “Battle Studies” was co-produced by Steve Jordan and Mayer. He described the album as liberated, relaxed and confession, incorporating the melodies, simplicity and warmth of California rock and pop from the ’70s and ’80s.

Three Days Grace, the Canadian rock band, will finish off the year touring Canada to support their recently released “Life Starts Now,” which is their third album. The natives of Toronto will start on the west coast and work their way to the east coast, starting in Victoria, British Columbia on November 16 and ending the tour 20 shows later on December 22 in Quebec City.

Although “Kerosene,” the debut album from Miranda Lambert, did offer an artistic exuberance that was refreshing and disregarded the methods and conventions that her would-be peers employed at the time, the album did suffer from its lack of refinement artistically as well as narrative naivety. With “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” Lambert’s second album, her artistic vision was brought into clearer focus. The album showcased a young singer that had become more road weary and much less blindly optimistic at that point than when she first started on her musical journey.

Despite “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” receiving nearly universal acclaim, the album was bogged down with struggling with aggression and firepower that Lambert’s image had come to be defined by, which also underscored much of her songwriting, with abstract meanderings via a series of heartbreak and love ballads. The ballads seemed mostly esoteric. The album did provide a certain degree of rebellion and irreverence that has been lacking in country music recently, nevertheless the set appeared to be an artistic statement that was incomplete, with Lambert failing to realize her potential fully or completely utilizing her considerable multi-dimensional talent.

All of the conflicting issues are brought into balance with her new album “Revolution,” with the result being the most satisfying and even set from Lambert to date. As a vocalist she has fully evolved and her songwriting skills have matured significantly. Here she avoids for the most part burning things and shooting people. She chooses to instead focus on deconstructing her frustration, anger and most surprisingly her happiness, which was notable absent on her two previous albums.

It wasn’t just talk on Twitter after all. John Mayer and Taylor Swift really did record a duet together. According to a report from CountryMusicIsLove.com, the upcoming album of Mayer’s will include his collaboration with the teen age country singing sensation. The track’s title is “Half of My Heart.” Back in March John tweeted that he wanted to record a song along with Taylor.

Lady Antebellum, the highly successful country trio, will be finishing up their support tour for Keith Urban before they hit the road later this fall for their own headlining run. The three piece band from Nashville will be performing three more shows with Urban. They will wrap things up on October 13 with a hometown performance.

This fall the Cranberries will reunite once again after seven years for a month long North American tour.

Morrissey, following his month long tour of Europe this fall, will be returning to the States before the end of the year for a run on the West Coast to promote the upcoming b-sides of “Swords.”

Pearl Jam appears to be on course to grab their first No. 1 album in 13 years on the Billboard 200 next week. Prognostications by industry experts have suggested that “Backspacer,” the band’s new album that was released on Sunday, will probably sell somewhere between 175,000 to as many as 200,000 copies by the end of the week. This type of sales figure should place them easily ahead of their competition when Billboard’s 200 chart is published on Wednesday for the week ending September 27.

In October, Snoop Dogg hits the road to stir up some interest for “Malice in Wonderland,” his upcoming studio album which is set to be released in December of this year. The tour will kick off in Baltimore, MD on October 27.

Elvis Costello, Pearl Jam, and The Dave Matthew Band are among the acts that are scheduled for performances on “Austin City Limits,” the public broadcast musical show, which on October 3 will begin its 35th year.