Recorded in Nashville with producer Steven Wood and featuring a veritable who’s who of premier Nashville studio musicians, The Country Side of Paul Carrack Vol 2 features cover versions of 10 classic Country hits.
Paul says: “I’ve always wanted to make a country album, and I’m now very pleased to be coming with the second edition. A lot of people detect the influences of soul in my music, but I’ve always loved country as well. Growing up, I was hungry for any kind of music, but I would listen to people like Chet Atkins, The Everly Brothers, Hank Williams and I particularly loved Ray Charles, who is predominantly known for his soul and jazz stuff, but could also sing great country.
I have an older brother, John and one Christmas…
Category: americana
What does it look like when the family business is music? In the case of The Family — a kind of “supergroup” made up of singer-songwriter Dylan LeBlanc and his father James LeBlanc, stepmother Angela Hacker, and stepbrother Bay Simpson — it’s a little messy. On the band’s first album, Delusions of Grandeur, they’re unpacking some of the baggage that splintered them apart and eventually brought them back together to FAME Studios in the LeBlancs’ native Muscle Shoals, Alabama in 2020 to record it. Released by Dylan LeBlanc’s brother-in-law’s Big Black Cow Records, Delusions of Grandeur is a true family affair, one that feels effortless in the ways it shines a light on each member’s individual artistry. LeBlanc’s woozy mysticism, his father’s easy grooves, Hacker’s…
Scarborough-based Phil Hooley is the founder of the alt-country band The Woolgatherers. Everything We’ll Never Need is his third solo album after Provenance (2023) and Songs from the Back Room (2021). He is on vocals and guitar, but has teamed up with a number of top Nashville session players. It is a slight surprise to learn that he is a Yorkshire lad, because this album very much has an American feel. It is laid-back americana with a very nice brew of country, soul, and blues that reminds you of Dave Alvin and Rodney Crowell.
Having said that, the first track, ‘Cowboy Dreaming’, has more than a whiff of the English band Dire Straits, with slide guitar picking to give it a country feel. It is a weird tale of a city-dweller going out to the Wild West to become…
Robert Sawrey’s story inevitably shapes the way The End of the Road is heard. Recording under the name Hadnot Creek, he only began releasing music after retiring from a career outside the music industry. That sense of freedom runs throughout these ten songs. There is no sense of chasing fashions or commercial expectations, just a songwriter drawing on country, blues and americana traditions to tell stories about flawed people, broken relationships and the long shadows cast by addiction and mortality. Despite the darkness that often inhabits the lyrics, there is also something quietly life-affirming about the album simply existing: proof that creativity need not have an expiry date.
Opener ‘A River of Love’ immediately introduces…
…’12 Golden Country Greats’, which includes Ween classics “Piss Up a Rope,” “I’m Holding You,” and “Pretty Girl,” has been remastered from the original tapes and comes with more than 20 unreleased demos and outtakes from the Nashville sessions. Among them are two songs cut from the original album, “I’ve Got No Darkside” and Jerry Garcia tribute “So Long, Jerry.”
The main problem with 12 Golden Country Greats is that it’s Ween’s first album to concentrate on a single music genre and such concentration lends the impression that they consider themselves above the genre. But that isn’t entirely the case. Ween recorded 12 Golden Country Greats in Nashville with numerous legendary musicians, including the Jordanaires, Buddy Spicher,…
Ambient Americana Volume 2 brings together major icons of the ambient and experimental folk scenes, including legendary producer Daniel Lanois, ambient guitar pioneer William Tyler, and standard-bearers of the current cosmic Americana revival like Hayden Pedigo and North Americans.
“Our May 2021 issue came with a special free CD – the then-latest instalment in our Sounds of the New West series. Titled Ambient Americana: A Road Trip Across Psychic State Lines, it brought together a group of artists who were mixing the traditions of country and folk with the mind-expanding sounds of ambient and kosmische music.
…a mere five years on, we’re delighted to bring you Volume 2, which comes free with Uncut’s August 2026 issue.”
If you’re a fan of Gram Parsons or Emmylou Harris, husband-and-wife duo Eleese and Matthew Meschery’s band name Brand New Heartache is bound to fire a spark of recognition.
You might also be pleased to hear that the inspiration of Parsons and Harris can be felt throughout A New Alchemy, the couple’s debut album, as the Californian natives – who are recent transplants to Tennessee – showcase beautiful vocals, tight harmonies and, of course, a tale or two of heartache.
The airy, acoustic Montreal sees the couple dreaming of the city, of walking its streets as revellers spill from bars and the smell from bakeries fills the air, their harmonies so tight there is no room at all for movement.
On Christian Name, an album inspired by the devastating loss of a child, Charles Wesley Godwin narrates his journey through despondency, grief, and redemption to a new understanding of his faith.
Godwin explains, “These songs really meant a lot to me. There’s parts of me and parts of the things that I’ve gone through in the last couple years that are in each and every song on this album.”
The title of the album – Christian Name – and the cover art were inspired by his late grandfather, Charles Godwin, who was a preacher in the Methodist Church. Alongside two standout collaborations, the catchy “Better That Way” with Luke Combs and the moving “Hey There Son” with Wyatt Flores, Christian Name finds …
Perhaps at the end of time we will feel the full weight of history hitting us from behind like a train. Perhaps as the world limps towards its final moments we’ll experience a flickering, cut-up dream movie made up of random constituent parts of human history.
These are the sort of thoughts that must have preoccupied Creekbed Carter Hogan during the making of Peasants Revolt, a record that acknowledges the possibility of an imminent apocalypse but is steeped in a wide range of musical and social histories: medieval uprisings, the Haitian Revolution, twenty-first-century trans activism, Americana, political folk music.
To say Peasants Revolt provides a rich and varied listening experience is…
What an extraordinary band are the Punch Brothers, a bunch of conspicuously talented musicians whose six albums never fail to delight and stimulate as they push the boundaries of acoustic music to what you think would be beyond breaking point. It’s been said that they’ve taken “bluegrass to its next evolutionary stage, drawing equal inspiration from the brain and the heart”.
Virtuosos all, The Unsung Adventures of Punch Brothers marks the debut of fiddler Brittany Haas with the band which, in addition to Chris Thiele, includes Chris Eldridge on guitar, Paul Kowert on bass, and Noam Pikelny on banjo. A sought-after session and touring musician whose credits include US TV host Steve Martin’s bluegrass band, Haas managed to pursue her youthful…
You have to hand it to Chris “CR” Gennone when it comes to naming his bands; consistency is at the fore. He loves the moniker CR so much so that he’s recorded five albums as CR and the Degenerates, then with a few lineup changes, it was CR and the Nones in 2019, and now we have the third album from CR & the White Lights.
Having listened to their previous release, The Ghosts Are Coming Home, which is a truly magnificent album, the quality of writing and musicianship hasn’t slipped one iota on this new one. This is a really solid collection bringing to mind the best qualities of Neil Young and Wilco, that spotlights Gennone’s wonderfully soulful and effective vocals and some superb driving hooks, demonstrating his musicianship…
Abnormal Conditions’ is the fifth album by upstate New York roots rockers Frank Migliorelli and the Dirt Nappers, and it is an absolute corker.
It blends rock, soul, folk and even sixties pop in a wonderfully ‘live’ feeling record. With two members of Springsteen’s backing band in Soozie Tyrell and Lisa Lowell helping out, the pedigree of the band is unquestionable.
In his mid-sixties, Migliorelli has had a long and varied artistic career. He has been a computer and video game developer, written children’s music and worked in educational media and been a creative director at a design firm. He has also found time to produce blues and soul music before returning to writing and performing, which he has been doing for the past ten years.
At the age of 72, “Evil” Graham Lee, the legendary pedal steel pioneer and veteran of the iconic Australian band The Triffids, delivers his first ever album under his own name titled I Think I’m Alone Now. In addition to his work with The Triffids, Graham’s place in ambient history was cemented in 1990 when his evocative pedal steel became the soulful centerpiece of The KLF’s masterpiece, Chill Out (specifically on the highlight “Baltimore to Fair Play”).
…He’s recorded with Robert Forster and Cut Copy. But for nearly a decade, he has used his Bandcamp page as a repository of ongoing experiments, from ascendant longform instrumentals and aleatoric collages to exquisite and tender tributes to late songwriters like John Prine and…
Consider the phrase “in the zone.” Usually, it refers to a state of concentration that enhances productivity. From a musical standpoint, it suggests the locked-in flow that musicians can achieve when riding a juicy groove or digging into a wicked series of riffs. To “zone out,” on the other hand, evokes a blissful state of ethereal detachment in which such things as rhythm and momentum are left behind or transcended.
Colorado trio Prairiewolf operates in both these realms, creating limpid yet propulsive instrumental music that faces the stars while remaining focused on doings on the ground.
For their first two albums, Stefan Beck (guitar), Jeremy Erwin (keys/synths), and Tyler Wilcox (bass) created retro-futuristic lounge music…
Multi-platinum country artist and STAIND frontman Aaron Lewis releases his latest solo album, Give My Country Back, available via Big Machine Label Group. With his sixth solo country album, Lewis once again delivers the unapologetic honesty and hard-earned perspective that have defined his career. Across ten tracks, Give My Country Back explores themes of accountability, resilience, faith, patriotism and personal growth – pairing gritty throwback country textures with Lewis’ unmistakable vocal intensity.
“That’s life’s struggle right there,” Lewis says. “You are the master of your own destiny, and everything happens because of your actions — whether you want to admit it or not. Self-ownership is a huge thing to learn how to do in this life…
West Virginia’s John R. Miller gratifies a whole host of musical erogenous zones on his new album The Great Unknowing, including honky tonk country, Appalachian folk, feral folk rock, and a few things you’re not sure exactly what to call that get caught up in the hopper as he puts a heaping helping of 16 tracks on your plate to savor. Mr. Miller doesn’t bite off more than he can chew though. He delivers the goods on what’s ultimately a songwriter album graced by strong musical accompaniment.
Even before John R. Miller started sprouting flecks of gray in his hair and beard, he came across as a crotchety old soul in that endearing sort of way. You can tell he’s hard on clutches and brake pads. Sometimes he forgets to shower or eat. He seesaws between benders and sobriety.
The hard-living country singer/songwriter Gary Stewart rightfully earned his title “King of the Honky Tonks.” He began as a songwriter of drinking, honky tonk, and heartbreak songs. During the 1970s he hit as a recording artist with charting singles including “She’s Acting Single (I’m Drinking Doubles),” “Drinkin’ Thing,” “Quits,” and “Whiskey Trip,” and a string of charting albums from 1975’s Out of Hand to 1980’s Cactus and a Rose. They earned the respect of critics, DJs, and the record-buying public. Stewart sounded like a young George Jones and pounded the piano like Jerry Lee Lewis. After the hits stopped, his lifestyle got the better of him, despite three excellent comeback albums for Hightone in the ’90s.
In November 2003, his wife of 47 years died…
Newly remastered and now with a previously unreleased bonus track, “Hammer and Nails”.
Laura Cantrell knows and loves good music too well to be a purist, and while her first two albums, Not the Tremblin’ Kind and When the Roses Bloom Again, were firmly grounded in her great fondness for country music, she expands her boundaries a bit on her third set (and first for Matador), Humming by the Flowered Vine. While the feel of Humming by the Flowered Vine isn’t radically different than her previous work, the sound and arrangements offer some new wrinkles, with producer J.D. Foster and a superb cast of musicians edging Cantrell into an inventive pop direction. The pensive love song “14th Street,” a strong but sorrowful reading of “And Still,”…
