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Ali Handal Keeps Moving Forward on ‘Slow Burn’, with Marc Maron Along for the Ride

By Kath Galasso on October 14, 2026

Ali Handal’s latest release week has included a new album, an upcoming pair of Los Angeles shows and, now, a guitar duel with Marc Maron. The comedian and WTF host appears alongside Handal in the newly released video for “High Road,” staging a musical faceoff inside a boxing ring while Handal’s band plays nearby.

The setup gives the song a comic surface while preserving the idea that inspired it. Handal began writing “High Road” after hearing Maron discuss how difficult it can be to behave like a good partner when anger encourages the opposite response. Maron later played on the track, and the two trade solos on the recording as well as in its video counterpart.

The clip arrives as Handal’s new album Slow Burn begins its first week in the world following an October 9 release. Taken as a whole, the record makes a convincing case for experience as an active creative resource. Its blues and rock foundations are familiar, but Handal uses them to examine subjects closely tied to where she is now: a long marriage, an independent career, changing definitions of success and the continuing possibility of personal growth.

The album’s title is particularly well chosen. Handal spent much of her early career absorbing an industry culture that placed intense emphasis on youth. Her actual path unfolded differently. Since releasing her first album in 2000, she has built a career through touring, recording, songwriting, teaching and a direct connection with listeners, all while continuing to develop as a guitarist.

That development is audible in the way Slow Burn treats guitar playing. Handal has enough technical credibility to make the instrument an obvious headline, yet the strongest passages on the record are often those in which the guitar acts as part of the storytelling. “High Road” is a good example. The traded solos with Maron are entertaining, but they make sense because competition is already embedded in the song’s underlying idea.

“Perennial” uses collaboration differently. Scarlet Rivera’s violin creates one of the album’s most personal connections, linking Handal’s current music to childhood memories of hearing Bob Dylan’s “Hurricane” with her father. The song’s focus on the possibility of change at any age gives Rivera’s appearance an additional layer, connecting musical history with the album’s larger refusal to treat age as a creative boundary.

Even the covers feel connected to Handal’s biography. Her version of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” draws on years spent performing with RagDolls and shifts the song toward a slower blues groove. Her take on “Come Together” similarly resists simply copying the source material, bringing vocal harmonies and an intimate arrangement to one of rock’s most recognizable songs.

Handal co-produced Slow Burn with Seth Atkins Horan, and Ross Hogarth mixed the record. Much of it was made at Mark Mothersbaugh’s Los Angeles studio, where vintage equipment supported the guitar tones that Handal had spent years developing. The production gives the album continuity without smoothing away the differences among its blues, rock, soul and singer-songwriter influences.

The current release cycle will continue on October 15 at The Baked Potato in Studio City, where Handal is scheduled to perform at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. Both album release sets will be professionally recorded for a forthcoming live project. That makes the Maron video feel less like the endpoint of Slow Burn than another stop in a particularly active chapter for an artist whose central argument is that there is always room to keep going.