Blood Sucking Maniacs, the Allen family band, helmed by patriarch and matriarch Terry Allen and Jo Harvey Allen, spans five generations and 121 years, including (among others) their sons Bukka and Bale Allen; grandsons Kru, Sled, and Calder Allen; Panhandle Mystery Band mainstays Charlie Sexton, Lloyd Maines, and Richard Bowden, and frequent collaborator Will Sexton.
…Giving themselves the collective name Blood Sucking Maniacs, the songs are free, wild, tender, and gloriously unruly. Put all the contributions together, and we find a mash-up of heart-punch ballads, familial rib-prods, and everything in between, shifting from the sublime to the unabashedly sentimental with maximum integrity.
The name was inspired by their son Bale,…
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Joe Martin describes himself as a “21st century Troubadour,” and has been likened to Lyle Lovett, a comparison which is hard to find on the opening song, ‘Hand Me Down Heart’. A driving piece of country rock which is closer to Tom Petty, with an added epic sweep and the bass guitar of Cornelius Webb (Jimmy Webb’s son) pushing the song along. Having been written and recorded in Nashville, you might be expecting a contemporary country-based record. Second tune ‘Checkmate’ confounds that with a pop/rock song which could as easily have emerged from his native Lancashire as the Midwest. Ben Jarrad adds some silky slide guitar.
On Middle of Nowhere, Kacey Musgraves doesn’t so much return to her roots as redraw the map entirely — one where solitude isn’t a pit stop between relationships but the destination itself. Written in the aftermath of a breakup and shaped by long stretches of intentional aloneness, her seventh LP and debut for Lost Highway finds her toggling between self-sufficiency, mischief and the occasional bout of well-earned chaos.
It can take years to develop the kind of band chemistry you can hear straight away, the kind that’s all over 
Guy Clark’s debut, Old No. 1, did not sell many records upon its original release in 1975. However, over time the album has earned a reputation as a masterpiece that has inspired a zillion songwriters since. The list of notables influenced by Clark and this LP includes a host of prominent singer-songwriters, including Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, Lyle Lovett, Nanci Griffith, and Vince Gill. They have all proudly paid tribute to Clark in song and story. Fifty years later, Truly Handmade Records, an independent record label and imprint established by Guy Clark LLC, has released Old No. 1: Revisited. It’s a track-by-track tribute to the original, featuring some of the best young(er) musicians working in the Americana and alternative country fields today, such as Margo Price,…
The term legend is an overused description, but in Dale Watson’s case, it’s a perfect fit. Originally cutting his teeth on Houston’s honky tonk circuit and releasing his debut album Cheatin’ Heart Attack in 1995, he’s become an icon of outlaw country music and one of its hardest-working stars. 300 shows a year are not uncommon, along with an average of an album every 12 months. At age 63, Unwanted is his latest release and long-time fans will not be disappointed.
Ringo Starr’s debut outing with T Bone Burnett, 2025’s Look Up, was a creative triumph, so the pair haven’t messed much with the formula on this swift follow-up. Returning are Molly Tuttle – duetting with Starr on three of the 10 tracks, including Robert Plant/Alison Krauss-styled opener ‘Returning Without Tears’ – and Billy Strings for the Everly Brothers-fashioned harmonies of ‘My Baby Don’t Want Nothing’.
…DIX describe themselves as a roots band with a folky heart and a generous dose of melancholic americana. The band was formed by childhood friends from the Dutch region of Land van Maas en Waal: Erik van Oijen (vocals, guitar, mandolin), Johnny Ariëns (bass), Bart Versteegh (drums, accordion), and guitar virtuoso Ray van Haalen (guitar, banjo). Having been formed around 25 years ago, it took a while before their debut album, Sayonara (2010), appeared. This was followed by For Love (2013).
Cosmic American Music is the debut of 
Recorded at the Rockbonden Studio in the snow-covered forests of Sweden, Norway’s 
Souled American return after thirty years with a work of immediate relevance. Arriving just in time, with decency roundly mocked, as dissent spells career disaster and algorithms isolate us into units of convenience, 
For years, Cactus Lee has quietly built a singular body of work, playing honky-tonks around Austin while releasing records at a steady, self-driven pace.
The Pacific north-west of the USA has been called home by many giants of the blues, rock, and grunge scenes, but alongside these, there’s long been a fertile seam of indie folk and alt-country music. Fleet Foxes and Brandi Carlile hail from Seattle, and from Portland, there’s The Delines, The Decemberists and The Dandy Warhols, while in recent years you might spot Jerry Joseph or Patterson Hood in the local deli. Vegans and cyclists are welcome in this city, proud of its reputation for being weird. Some twenty years ago, this attracted several musicians from Anchorage, Alaska, who each separately found their way to Oregon before coming together as 
Staying positive is an incredibly difficult skill to maintain. With all the negativity and palpable tension thickening the air, stirring up a fog so dense we sometimes forget to look at our fellow humans and share a smile, being the one to break the mold and share a technology-free moment with someone, or anything, is a scary undertaking. It is much easier to fall victim to the downtrodden nature that seems to plague the world around us, and thankfully, Scott Kinnebrew has never been fond of the easy route. The road-tested veteran and member of the beloved country rock outfit Truth and Salvage Co has always brought a complexity to his art that is both welcoming and compelling. On the other hand, his solo work under the moniker 
To an outsider, Ashley Monroe is a Nashville success story. As she wrote in her Instagram post heralding the release of her latest record, Dear Nashville, during the past 23 years, she has released six solo albums, released four more with Pistol Annies, co-wrote two songs that went to number one on country radio, and has been nominated for Grammy Awards three times. She’s accomplished much more than the typical singer-songwriter looking for glory in Music City.
Although