A BAND that has appeared at just about every major festival in the UK, The Hot Seats, return to these shores later this month.

The Virginian livewires take in several venues in the Borders - including Peebles - during their sixth tour over here.

Fans of the hot five-piece will get a chance to hear blistering new material from a brand new album - their eighth - that gets its official release as soon as they arrive in the UK.

The Hot Seats take in a string of dates, many in Scotland, and will be one of the main attractions at this year’s Summertyne Americana Festival at The Sage in Gateshead.

They have gathered praise following performances at big events such as Celtic Connections, Didmarton Bluegrass Festival, Maverick Festival, HebCeltFest and Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where they picked up the biggest accolade possible - a Herald Angel - for their outstanding contribution to the event following a sell-out run at The Famous Spiegeltent.

They were widely recognised as one of the outstanding acts at last year’s Shetland Folk Festival, their fiery brand on blistering Appalachian old-time mixed with left of centre bluegrass and a sprinkling of their own compositions winning them loads of attention.

Frontman Josh Bearman, a multi-instrumentalist, like several of his sidekicks, said they were delighted to be heading back to areas of Scotland they have visited and enjoyed previously.

“It’s great to play on the big festival stages, but we love it too, whenever we get a chance to take our music into the more intimate performance spaces,” he said.

“We are playing at three UK festivals this year, as well as returning to some smaller clubs and halls, so the balance is just how we like it.” On previous tours they have played at venues in the Borders such as Heart of Hawick and The Corn Exchange in Biggar and the Eastgate Theatre, Peebles.

The band started out fine-tuning their skills on the redneck bars and college clubs circuit where they experimented with a suitcase-full of assorted toys to supplement the guitar/mandolin/banjo/fiddle/bass line-up, employing everything from jawharp to washboard, tin can percussion and vintage trap-kit drum set.

Their original music is simultaneously hard to classify and instantly identifiable, combining the virtuosic soloing and tightness of bluegrass, the band-driven rhythm of old time, the jerky bounce of ragtime, and the swagger of good old rock and roll.

They appear at the Eastgate Theatre on Wednesday, July 30.