The world may be ending, but singer-songwriter Jim Keller is pretty OK with the whole thing; that’s if the title track from his 7th album, End of the World, is anything to go by anyway. “No more fighting, no more pain,” he sings in a tone that can only be described as joyous, against a backdrop that features everything from pedal steel to marimba. “No more calling everybody names / Nothing but red skies day after day / Nobody talking when they got nothin’ to say.” Which, like the album, sounds pretty good indeed.
Optimism in the face of hardship is something of a theme throughout the record, and that’s demonstrated no where better than on the infectiously uplifting ‘Love One Another’ as Keller insists that, no matter the trials…
Category: americana
New York-born Julianna Raye had a brief flirtation with fame in the early ’90s when producers Jeff Lynne (ELO) and Lenny Waronker (Maria Muldaur, Ry Cooder and many more) were minded to sign her for a major label (Reprise) after hearing her backing vocals; she released the very poppy Something Peculiar in 1993. Sadly, it was not a commercial success despite critical acclaim, and when Waronker left the label, Raye was left without a contract; thus, it was 9 years before she released her second album, Restless Night, produced by the equally legendary Ethan Johns — a more rock-pop recording. She has played with and supported artists like Don Henley, Stevie Nicks, and Rufus Wainwright, and has played on many artists’ albums. Her songwriting has…
Couples who choose to record together will obviously bring a genuinely personal touch to songs they create, and Jonathan and Abigail Peyton have chosen for Jonathan’s third release to perform as a duo, and the results are magnificent. Their ability to write superb melodies and deliver captivating harmonies is highly impressive. The quality doesn’t diminish with this collection of songs, which are drawn from highly individualistic trauma and subsequent personal growth. Jason Hoard twiddled the knobs majestically, and the songs are all written by Peyton, with one written by Brian Elmquist (The Lone Bellow). The duo are backed up by Jason Hoard (guitars, banjo, bass, mandolin), Jonathan Ray (guitars), Kevin Carl (drums), Isaac George…
Normal Town is the third album from acclaimed Oxfordshire five-piece, The Dreaming Spires, and their first new music in nearly a decade. However, a decade-long hiatus from recording hasn’t dimmed the band’s love of rock ‘n’ roll romance with a record that has both nostalgia-fuelled anthems and reflective ballads on themes such as escape, alienation and atomisation – but where the redemptive power of music ultimately wins out.
The Dreaming Spires’ new album title has its origins in the neighbouring town of Didcot, where the band’s founding members and brothers, Joe and Robin Bennett, reside. A 2017 study found that Didcot closely matched the national median average for a range of different statistics, earning it the sobriquet “the most normal town…
The Lonesome Ace Stringband are John Showman and Chris Coole, and Big Wing is a fabulous journey into the world of bluegrass. This new collection includes six original tunes and four covers. They all slot together to give a well-balanced suite, including stunning instrumentals as well as songs. This is their seventh album as the Lonesome Ace Stringband and the first since their Try to Make It Fly set released in 2023.
Both members carry out vocal duties with Showman taking up the fiddle, strings and Coole playing banjo, guitar, and percussion. They are joined by other musicians, mainly on bass, and spread the load around a very talented bunch, including Andrew Collins, who plays mandolin and co-wrote track three, ‘May Day’ with…
Terry Klein’s fifth studio album, Hill Country Folk Music, offers a moving meditation on aging and memory in intimate and environmental terms. He knows he’s getting older. Youth has passed him by, and the natural world has become a less lovely place, but he’s not old yet, just older, and the despoiled ecology still has its charms. He’s a man in the middle who can’t help but chuckle at his fate. We are going to die someday, and maybe we are all doomed collectively.
Therefore, as he sings on the first and last cuts on the album, the least he can do is “Try” and “Try Again”. (It’s the same song sung differently.) Klein says he values the sound of the river and the stars in the sky. He knows life is more than just lying back and accepting the way…
…This limited edition release is part of the Corb Lund – Dark Horses Club. New West Records will be releasing unreleased records and material from Corb Lund throughout 2025 and 2026.
You gotta give it up for those proud men of the army, this fine nation would collapse into the sea if it wasn’t for the influence of ex-military dudes and the jobs they perform. Whether they’re barking orders at us in PE lessons, refusing us entry to nightclubs because our shoes are “fucking casual, mate”, holding up the one arm they have left whilst begging for change outside of Jubilee Line Underground stations, or just simply raping and killing a bunch of women: the real life soulja boys are an essential part of the fabric of our society. And more than worthy of having…
…includes five previously unreleased recordings. These include Lucinda Williams’ ‘Sweet Old World’ and Bob Dylan’s ‘Every Grain of Sand’, both of which featured on “Wrecking Ball”. The additional tracks include Tom Petty’s ‘Thing About You’ and Bill Monroe’s ‘Get Up John’ along with ‘All I Left Behind’ which was co-written by Harris with Kate and Anna McGarrigle.
This live project, which includes the talents of the always great Buddy Miller, is an interesting reflection of an American icon. Eclectic, it is reflective of Emmylou Harris‘ excursions into areas of music beyond the country and rock spheres she has already conquered. But it is the country arena that best showcases her ever-flowering ability with a song. “I Ain’t Living Long Like This”…
Willie Nelson spent much of the summer out on the road with the Outlaw Festival, so it’s only appropriate that his new studio album is paying tribute to a fellow Outlaw.
Workin’ Man: Willie Sings Merle finds Young celebrating his late friend Merle Haggard, with whom he recorded three albums between 1983 and 2015. Willie’s 78th original album, Workin’ Man features a host of Hag favorites including “Okie from Muskogee,” “Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down,” “Today I Started Loving You Again,” “Mama Tried,” and “If We Make It Through December.”
…The album was recorded at Nelson’s Pedernales Studios in Austin and marked the final recordings that Nelson made with a pair of members in his longtime Family band: drummer…
Joelton Mayfield grew up living and breathing the Bible, through early youth aligning himself unquestioningly with the Christian fundamentalism of his native Texas. You can hear that familiarity and comfort in songs like “Jacob Dreamed a Ladder,” an earnest, entirely natural, slightly updated exploration of the story from the Book of Genesis. “And behold, the lord, as you’ve never seen before, driving down a highway of solid gold/the mover of the mountains bringing peace into the valley down below,” Mayfield croons, wobbling on the notes to give them extra emotional impact. Yet the slow rocking “Now,” hints at a widening perspective, quoting Wilco and the Mountain Goats, as Mayfield discovers the power of secular music. Crowd Pleaser is not about…
Jeremy Pinnell’s latest LP edges away from the strictly traditional country sound that anchored his early records, where Roots, Western Swing, and Honky Tonk set the tone. His new Shooter Jennings-produced release, Decades, builds on that foundation but folds in streaks of blues and ’70s rock — not that surprising given the eclectic mix he was raised on, including everything from Merle Haggard and AC/DC to Concrete Blonde.
“Barabbas,” which opens the album, is slow-paced with minimal instrumentation, allowing his vocals – deep, gritty, and beautifully unvarnished – to dominate the track. The deeply literate lyrics here, referencing Barabbas, the Biblical thief who was pardoned over Jesus, make it clear from the start that this isn’t another girl in…
The adjective “Waits-ian” (with reference to Tom Waits) is one that is often applied to performers who gruffly operate outside of the musical mainstream and Micah P. Hinson, in his career, is one who might well have been thus categorised with his close mic-ed rich and ragged vocals and sparse, rhythmic instrumentation, typified by the songs on his 2022 release I Lie to You.
With The Tomorrow Man, Hinson takes a musical turn into richer – possibly smoother – territory with the addition of (mainly) orchestral string backing. The opening ‘Oh, Sleepyhead’ has a triumphalist orchestral arrangement, whereas ‘One day I will get my revenge’ wanders more into Father John Misty territory with its reliance on narrative and catchy melody.
Twenty-five years ago this Halloween, three Kalamazoo, Michigan-area college students got together for an impromptu house party-gig that would forever change the course of progressive bluegrass. Inspired by a handful of informal performances at some bluegrass open mic nights hosted by a Kalamazoo-area rustic Greek bar & restaurant, The Blue Dolphin, Michael Arlen Bont (banjo), Dave Bruzza (guitar) and Paul Hoffman (mandolin) performed for the first time as Greensky Bluegrass, delivering an intimate set of bluegrass standards in a living room surrounded by a few small handfuls of their closest costume-laden friends and acquaintances.
The trio continued to hone their impressive chops and wildly unique style over the next…
The Devil Makes Three has never been accused of making light, vapid music. Across seven albums, the Santa Cruz-based trio has melded blues, folk, Americana, and even influences of punk with often deeply personal, occasionally dark lyrics for a deeply satisfying gothic folk sound. Like Johnny Cash fronting The Cramps, the band has cleaved out a unique sound for more than two decades.
And their latest, Spirits, is no different. In fact, it might be the most Devil Makes Three album yet, as it leans into darker subjects like grief and mortality. “There’s a theme of ghosts and death running through this album,” says frontman Pete Bernhard, who lost his mother, brother, and closest childhood friend while making the record. “The world’s in a strange place right now.
Jared Dustin Griffin’s sophomore album – The Perseverance of Sisyphus – could be seen as dreary yet formidable. It is a brooding rumination on what happened in the past tense and what awaits ahead in the dark and cold days to come. On ‘Shovel,’ Griffin intones in a gravelly baritone: I’ve come through hell to find salvation / I’ve brought a shovel for when I’m done / And I have come to dig my dirt / It’s just the pain that burdens the hurt. This is a soft, wistful track about the end of a relationship, with Griffin’s character wishing he could have done more.
Past comparisons made between Griffin and icons like Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen can be made, but Griffin’s work stands on its own as well. Warm with yearning and steely with…
Michigan-based artist Ed Dupas says of his new album Codename California, his first in 6 years: “I’ve been working on writing around a theme, more or less, since 2019 and recording along the way. The recording process began to accelerate towards the end of 2023, working both in my Lava Lounge home studio and at Mackinaw Harvest with Michael Crittenden in Grand Rapids. In addition to my solo writing and recording, I’ve been making music with a group of talented Michigan musicians, including Caroline Barlow of The North Carolines, and Tony Pace and Daniel Andrews, formerly of Cold Tone Harvest.”
What this effort has produced is an album of songs sat mostly in the country area of americana. The opening title song builds from…
