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Reason To Live by Lou Barlow
Album review: The veteran singer-songwriter, previously of Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh and The Folk Implosion, returns with a melancholy but still joyously uplifting new solo album of lo-fi indie folk, acoustic guitar, jaunty and poignant numbers
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Beautiful and strange: Long Lost by Lord Huron
Album review: Serene, dreamy, beautifully melodic alt-country-folk by the Michigan-bred, LA-based group, their fourth and perhaps best yet album is awash with road imagery, rich cinematic inserts and classic retro guitar sounds
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Olivia Rodrigo is Sour about being a teenager and her her ex …
Album review: Brimful with anger, jealousy, and melancholy, an impressive debut LP by the 18-year-old American actress and singer-songwriter is startlingly mature, fuelled by a heartbreak, and mixes punk rage with power-ballad slow-boil spite
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Still growing: Flora Fauna is Billie Marten’s third album
Album review: We’ve previously highlighted her single, Garden of Eden, and the singer-songwriter from Ripon in Yorkshire’s third LP of folk-pop lives up it with its hushed, intimate vocals and an understated maturity that echoes Fiona Apple and Billie Eilish
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Declan O’Rourke’s seventh album, Arrivals
Album review: Released last month, and produced by Paul Weller, this gorgeous set of songs by the Irish folk singer-songwriter’s seventh album paints vivid pictures with superb musicianship and stories of personal narrative and protest
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Dodie’s debut album Build A Problem
Album review: Intimate, delicate, often whispered and candid, the debut album from the 25-year-old Essex singer-songwriter and YouTube star Dodie Clark magically minimal through subtle cinematic arrangements of strings, piano guitar and clarinet
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Angrusori: Live at Tou
Album review: An extraordinary album of traditional Romany songs and tragic ballads of migration by the Slovakian-Norwegian orchestra, performed with Bulgarian-style voices, strings and percussion with Hindustani to Yiddish echoes
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Beautiful emptiness: Will Graefe’s breakup album Marine Life
Album review: This fragile solo album of exquisite melancholy from the Brooklyn-based Okkervil River guitarist was written and recorded after a devastating breakup during Covid lockdown and echoes the sensitivity of Elliott Smith
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Superwolves by Matt Sweeney and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy
Album review: Gorgeously sensitive and emotional collaborative album between old friends, guitarist and singer-songwriter of folk, Nashville country, Appalachian and some Malian in the mix with guest players
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Lady Dan’s debut I Am The Prophet
Album review: A strong, emotional debut by singer-songwriter Tyler Dozier from Alabama, in which she address a number of issues from a strict religious upbringing to escaping from a difficult, controlling relationship
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Invisible Music
Album review: A novel album in many ways, full of charm, narrative and a fresh perspective, this eighth album by the Cambridge singer-songwriter explores the folk interest of the writer with readings and songs exactly that are just as she describes the stories - “bizarre, grotesque and beautiful”
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Album review: From traditional folk to original songs spanning continents and centuries, this outstandingly beautiful and emotive album by the American and Italian music and life partners was recorded in lockdown in their adopted Ireland home
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Caoilfhionn Rose
Album review: Sounding like a sunlit landscape of whispering grasslands, this beautiful mix of folk, jazz, ambient electronica and gentle psychedelia comes with the pure, soft, soaring voice of the Manchester singer-songwriter
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Peggy Seeger, still brilliant at 85
Album review: With wonderful clarity of voice, thought, style and wry, worldly perspective, this 24th solo LP from the 85-year-old folk legend exudes grace, charm and humour, showing she has lost none of her magic and poignancy
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Ben Howard’s fourth LP Collections From The Whiteout
Album review: After 2018’s Noonday Dream, the British singer-songwriter returns with a collaborative LP with guitarist Aaron Dessner of the National adding other talents that help stretches his styles beyond folk into electronica and beyond
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Ideas constantly sprouting: Chad VanGaalen’s latest album
Album review: An inventively eclectic homegrown release of tasty psychedelia, krautrock and folk by the Calgary songwriter and eccentric animator who uses a huge variety of instruments including his own invented lithophone
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Ladies of the canyon … the cover of Lana Del Rey’s eighth album
Album review: Evoking big, wide landscapes with a slow, melancholic, wistful, nostalgic and semi-fictional narratives, the New York singer-songwriter’s eighth album is of uniform style and slow pace, but rich in powerfully strong melodies and memorable lines
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Israel Nash
Album review: The Texas singer-songwriter’s latest LP indeed is a gem – infused with slow country, prog rock, southern gospel-soul, the folk and ‘70s psych-rock, with more than a dash of Neil Young, slide guitar and geographical reference
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Valerie June
Album review: This sublime fifth album by the soul singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Memphis, Tennessee includes a guest appearance by the legendary Carla Thomas
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William The Conqueror’s Maverick Thinker, their third album
Album review: The third album by the trio fronted by the Edinburgh-born singer-songwriter Ruarri Joseph is clever, catchy, bluesy, rocking and wry, filled with wistful lines, dry wit and great riffs
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