Mike Davies

In the final words of Dar William’s ‘I’ll Meet You Here’, she sings “Aren’t we aging well?” Like a fine wine, Williams is indeed a very special vintage that simply gets better and better with time.

A perfect illustration of how even an ad-hoc Findlay Napier album becomes a  captivating, indispensable work, it is what it is and what it is, is magnificent.

Old-timey acoustic bluesman Mark Harrison makes a welcome return with ‘The Road to Liberty’ that offers up a mirror to our troubles and challenges…while he might not be able to solve them, he still makes us smile as we go through them.

Produced by husband Neilson Hubbard, Neon Dream is Audrey Spillman’s first album since 2016’s Thornbird. To appreciate its nuances, listen to it without other distractions to let its listening pleasures unfold. It will be time well spent.

This is another outstanding example of how the pandemic has resulted in artists reconfiguring the way they approach their craft, finding new pathways while building on their established foundations. Between Us marks a new pinnacle in Ana Egge’s career of consistent highs.

Their most ambitious, densest and experimental work to date, ‘From Dreams To Dust’ may also be The Felice Brothers finest hour.

Confidently marking the beginning of a new musical path, Dori Freeman’s Ten Thousand Roses is a hugely accessible and infectious work, packed with instantly memorable melodies and hooks.

Della Mae deliver a compelling set with ‘Family Reunion’. Tracing themes of both loss and hope, it’s up there with their very best. This is one get together you will really want to celebrate.

If her debut offered an initial promise that Kashena Sampson was a timeless voice for the years, ‘Time Machine’ is a 24-carat confirmation that she belongs in the ranks of the greats.  Her gold will not tarnish.

Calling to mind the summer of love, The Heartless Bastards’ ‘A Beautiful Life’, serves as a reminder that it’s a beautiful life and it’s one that deserves to be lived and celebrated.

Individually, the four albums that form Blek’s Catharsis Project are each standout works, together forming a heart-swelling conceptual quartet. The finale, On Ether & Air, which is fuelled by and founded on an intermingling of loss and hope, proves a triumphant climax.

The Burner Band’s ‘Signs and Wonders’ is a bristlingly confident, musically infectious and assured debut. While they only once break the three-minute mark, they deliver by simply going in, doing the job, and getting out again with a less is more attitude.