Idol Chatter & Voice Views

The fourth-place finisher from Season 10 of American Idol, James released the moderately successful rock album “Memories of a Beautiful Disaster” back in 2011.

But he went pop-rock on his second album, “Celebrate.” And despite a very catchy lead single called “Parachute,” the new musical direction failed to catch on.

Now James is preparing to release his third album later this year. And it’s back to hard rock, just as he promised in the successful Pledge Music campaign that helped fund the project.

He delivered a first taste of the new music Friday when Loudwire.com premiered the video for “Smackdown.”

The song will be available as a single. In fact, you can get it from CD Baby now. It hasn’t landed on iTunes yet, but will soon, according to James’ Facebook page.

And you can still pre-order the album and get other goodies through the Pledge Music campaign.

“I’ve been working on these new songs, and I promise that they’ll rock harder than anything I’ve done before,” James, now 27, says in that campaign.

The title of the new album and the release date have not been announced.

James will also be one of the former Idol finalists returning to perform on the show’s Thursday night finale. Check back then for a live blog.