Leah Blevins begins her new album with the title track, “All Dressed Up”. She ends the record (presumably) naked with the cut “Centerfold”. One could see the eight tracks in the middle as a sort of striptease. Blevins sings her first-person confessional songs as she sheds layers of self-deception in search of her authentic self.
Blevins is serious but not afraid to be funny in her vulnerability. Despite her resolute concerns, she can’t help but smirk at her own failures and smile at her successes. The Kentucky-born singer-songwriter addresses the Lord as “Hey God” and wryly asks, “Do You really love me like they say You do?” On “Tequila Mockingbird”, she puns off the title, which refers to a type of alcohol, her Southern roots (“To Kill a Mockingbird”),…
Category: americana
At the end of 2024, Michael Weston King and Lou Dalgleish shared their first artistic reactions to the loss of their granddaughter Bebe King, at Southport with a select group of supporters in the media. The two songs, ‘Sally Sparkles’ and ‘The Empty Swing’, hinted at a new direction for the duo who make up My Darling Clementine.
“The events of summer 2024 not only changed the music they were making and the songs they were writing, it also altered their outlook on life. Recognising that everyone’s grief is individual, even that of a husband and wife, Michael and Lou needed to channel their suffering via their own individual creativity and in their own way, rather than in collaboration as My Darling Clementine, so they worked on two solo albums.”
Good As True, the 12th studio album from Yonder Mountain String Band, leans into a warm, expressive sound – bluegrass shaped with an indie edge, rock undertones, and a hint of country. Recorded live in the studio, its eight original tracks trace romantic, personal, and societal relationships and the work it takes to stay connected.
The lead single “Brand New Heartache” pairs rock-driven verses with a bluegrass-lifted chorus as it follows the fallout of a breakup and the uneasy hope of starting again, while “Blind” opens with a striking instrumental riff that lingers long after the song ends, while its lyrics confront regret, mental health struggles, and the pull to become something better. “Long Ride” delivers a sharp, sarcastic look at life in a touring band…
Charley Crockett has always been a prolific artist, stretching the limits of his imaginative approach to country, which toes the line between tradition and the lofty. Recently, though, the long-standing troubadour has been releasing distinct, genre-altering releases, starting with 2025’s Lonesome Drifter and Dollar a Day, which arrived a few short months later. These two subsequent releases, both co-produced by the iconic Shooter Jennings, build the story Crockett is calling “The Sagebrush Trilogy.” Now, the time has arrived for Crockett to close this chapter of his storied career with Age of the Ram, the third and final installment of his Jennings-assisted trilogy.
Each of these albums that make up The Sagebrush Trilogy has had a specific sound…
The Østfold county is dubbed by some as Norway’s Mississippi, as the country’s longest river, the Glomma, flows through its densely populated lowland area on its way to the Oslo Fjord. A fitting backdrop for americana four-piece Norma, whose debut album Country Catering pays reference to older legends like Poco and the Grateful Dead, as well as combining influences from more recent bands like Wilco. Produced by Simen Følstad Nilsen, who also contributes pedal steel, it’s a melodic meander down a path of floating melodies and chiming guitars.
The opener, Rabbit Feet, is typical of Norma’s approach: an understated driving beat accompanied by dreamy vocals that burst into life in the mid-section. The band was raised on…
At the age of sixty-eight, Jim Lauderdale is in top form, his voice as good as ever. The iconic songwriter, now a Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee, is showing no signs of slowing down, and in his own words: “I feel like I’m writing and recording more than ever, and that’s such a favourite thing of mine”. After featuring on Dallas Burrow’s The Way the West Was Won last year, Lauderdale is back with a record of his own, Country Super Hits Volume 2.
For those unfamiliar with his Country Super Hits Volume 1, released back in 2006, despite its title, it’s not a compilation of old hits, but rather a studio LP featuring a batch of songs that were new at the time. In the same way, with Volume 2, you are treated to thirteen fresh songs ready…
Includes 2 brand-new songs: “When You’re with Him” and “Before I Hung Your Picture On the Wall”.
Since the death of Johnny Cash, Rodney Crowell has assumed the crown as the King of Country Music, at least the Americana side of the genre. The 75-year-old former son-in-law of the Man in Black has a complete record of accomplishments and achievements as a singer, songwriter, and producer. Earlier this year, Willie Nelson put out a full-length album, Oh What a Beautiful World, which featured 12 songs written or co-written by Crowell over the past 50 years. What could top that? Well, Crowell’s not about to retire. He’s just released his 20th studio record, Airline Highway.
The new record reveals Crowell is still the master of diamonds and dirt, as he labeled his…
Before his career as a singer, songwriter, and recording artist took off, Luke Winslow-King spent several years supporting himself as a busker, both in the United States and Europe. Part of making a living playing on the streets is playing what people want to hear; maybe singing “Brown Eyed Girl” for the fifth time that day isn’t your favorite thing in the world, but if the guy with ten bucks in his hand wants to hear it, that’s what you play. Winslow-King has gone through plenty of changes since those days, and as he’s evolved from his early days playing traditional blues with a soulful accent, he’s opened himself to other sounds, and 2026’s Coast of Light is the work of a different Luke Winslow-King. While tracks like “Don’t Worry Your Mind,” “Shoot from the Hip” and…
For Sassparilla frontman and songwriter Kevin Blackwell, there is one lyric in particular on the band’s eight studio album, Honey, I’m Using Again, that feels especially truthful to where he is at this stage of his life: “Despite all my kicking / My protesting / I’ll be damned that I got old,” he bemoans on ‘I’ll Be Damned’, but inevitability of ageing is just one of the honest looks at the human experience explored on the LP. As its title suggests, addiction is also covered, along with homelessness and death. These are subjects that could feel like a chore to listen to, but with the band’s mix of punk and americana, they make for a fresh batch of invigorating, short, sharp life lessons with a Southern gothic flavour to them.
‘When I Get Off This Mountain’, heavy with…
Attachment Theory, features 11 tracks that analyze and reflect on the barriers we face when dealing with others as potential life partners. Dating is hard. Sellers has noted, “This record was born out of heartbreak, with the theme of attachment theory running through it in different ways. I’ve always been fascinated by psychology, especially people’s personalities and quirks, and how they function in relationships.” These songs address the issues creatively and thematically, but Sellers takes things one step further by launching a podcast series that explores the psychological theories behind such behavior for each of the 11 songs.
The first episode of Attachment Theory: The Podcast, “Villain of the Week”, delves into how dating apps attract emotionally unavailable…
The latest from the Nashville-based duo Paper Wings will reward fans who embraced their signature amalgamation of literate folk with bluegrass, as well as their lyrical willingness to explore the territory beneath the thin veil of decency people and societies present. On Mountains on the Moon, though, the prevailing themes are longing and abiding resilience through individual strength. A stern sense of self-reliance and clear-eyed hope may be the most political statement of the album – songwriting partners Emily Mann and Wila Frank have plumbed depths both personal and universal before. Here, they seek defiance through resolve and eschew despair in favour of cautious optimism.
The opener, ‘Fumbling’ alliteratively asks…
The pressures an artist or band faces when releasing a debut album have been discussed in countless articles. Still, when it comes to young shoegaze hopefuls Ringing and their Julia’s War Recordings-released LP Another Cycle in the Cosmic Wash, there are even more layers of stress for the band to deal with. What started as a noisy solo project built on experimenting with the limits of the middle ground between alt-rock and shoegaze has blossomed into a youthful, promising trio. Although for Colton Walker, Marcos Rocha, and Josh Matthews, the mission has stayed the same since Ringing uploaded their first songs to Bandcamp in 2020: leave their mark on what is slowly becoming a contemporary shoegaze revival.
This is not only Ringing’s debut album…
John Hollier hails from Louisiana, and though there are hints of his roots in his sound, it is mostly easy-flowing Americana music. After all, he and his band, John Hollier & The Reverie, wrote much of and recorded Rainmaker in Nashville. The band name stems from the French word, ‘rever,’ which means ‘’to dream,” a descriptor of being lost in thoughts, or daydreaming. Thus, the bulk of the album has a meditative quality, though they fire up occasionally,
Hollier took his road band, unseasoned in session work, into the studio to record live. Hollier is on guitar and lead vocals with Teddy Thebedoux Jones (sax). Zachary Scott Cline (lead guitar), Ray Akers (bass), and Brian Cox (drums). Hollier wrote all the songs, some in conjunction with bandmates…
On his own, Tony Trischka is considered one of the world’s foremost banjo players.
He is comfortable paying tribute to tradition of bluegrass pioneers while also stepping outside the box and innovating. To his own substantial body of work, Trischka adds two mammoth tribute projects: the 2023, Grammy-nominated Earl Jam, followed by Earl Jam 2.
…Both albums are built around a remarkable discovery: a cache of previously unheard recordings of Earl Scruggs and John Hartford informally jamming at Scruggs’ home between 1987 and 1998. Earl Jam 2 features 15 newly selected performances drawn from the same archive, spanning traditional standards, deep-cut fiddle tunes, and iconic American songs…
The All-Night Costume Company, the ninth solo effort from Tacoma, WA’s Kye Alfred Hillig, is the album that almost wasn’t.
After the release of his double LP in 2022, Hillig was feeling disillusioned and stepped away from music for the first time in more than 20 years. But quitting didn’t stick and instead served, in part, as a source for new material. Throughout the dozen songs here, Hillig weaves in themes of perseverance and getting by. In the first moments of the album, on “The Horrible Truth,” he puts vulnerabilities and existential dread over a mid-tempo beat. It’s not the best track on the album, but it offers a map of what’s to follow — stark, sometimes painfully honest truths of life over a solid indie rock soundtrack. But there is also…
Country music fans will tell you, there’s country music, and there’s Texas country music. They are not the same thing. Just because someone’s from the Lone Star state doesn’t make one a Texas country artist. Defining just what Texas music is can be difficult. It is characterized more by what it is not, almost more than what it is (grittier than Nashville production, populated by self-described outlaws, more honky-tonk danceable than ballad driven, etc.).
Because Texas music contains elements of pop (Buddy Holly), rock (ZZ Top), folk (Nanci Griffiths), gospel (Beyoncé), R&B (Leon Bridges), blues (Stevie Ray Vaughn), jazz (Lyle Lovett), ad infinitum, it’s hard to find a unifying principal that binds all of these artists together other…