Mike Davies

As his song put it, JT spent his life Looking For A Place To Land, this magnificent album from Steve Earle finds him and his legacy safe in his father’s loving arms.

Both Emma Scarr and Black have gathered a solid following for their albums and live shows in and around their stomping ground, this terrific album once again reinforcing that their music, together or solo, is deserving of a far wider and far bigger audience.

A remarkable, well-researched, historically illuminating, contemporary resonating and consummately crafted album that is both musically esoteric and accessible, haunting and atmospheric, it deserves to become a classic of its kind.

Mike Davies shares his Top 10 Albums of 2020 featuring Eliza Gilkyson, Luke Jackson, Blackbird & Crow, Ben Bostick, Bruce Springsteen, David Keenan, Merry Hell & more.

Songs of Govan Old is not only an album bursting with pride and passion to stir the heart and blood of any Scot, but a damn fine listen even if you don’t have a tartan stitch to your DNA.

Orlando is a highly accomplished, subtly emotional and beautifully textured debut from Seafarers, here’s hoping there are many voyages ahead.

Beattie’s “Somewhere Round The Bend” is an album for reverie and relaxing, of raising a glass to what was and a candle to what might be, the boy done good indeed.

Suffused with the yearning and the longing of its title, Tanya Brittain’s ‘Hireth’, her solo debut, more than fulfils its promise.

It took a hurricane wrecking their studio to jolt them into finally making these demos, originally recorded to just fulfil a publishing contract, available. Who said it’s an ill wind that blows no good?

An album to savour and immerse in rather than seeking out immediate pleasures, at one point she sings “I’ll never be in season, I’m forever ripinin’”; a heady fruit indeed.

Ovans has never failed to impress with his ability to either fire up the heart or cut to the emotional quick. Albums like this are the reason why some of us get out of bed in the morning.

Having been something of a treasured secret among the musical cognoscenti for the past decade the time has come for Sam Burton to take his overdue place on the wider stage.