Mike Davies

Canada has already fallen under folk singer-songwriter Evangeline Gentle’s spell, now it’s time to follow suit as her debut album is released internationally.

The equivalent of being gifted all those Dylan and Springsteen songs hitherto locked away unknown and unheard in the vaults. We’re looking forward to Vol 2 and 3.

The album cover of ‘Total Freedom’ has Kathleen Edwards facing out full-on, an image that embodies the music and the emotions within, a triumphant return to music.

While this project may have arisen out of a period of writer’s block, Swift’s interpretations and musical finesse shine brightly throughout this impressive cover album.

These songs deserve a far wider platform, give them a listen, earn him some money, spread the word and give a little love.

John Prine’s decision to sign Arlo McKinley was fully justified. This is a terrific album of confession, expiation and catharsis that deserves to be up there with the year’s best.

Consistently musically infectious and emotionally weightier than it seems at first hearing, in their name change Golden Shoals have most definitely raised their bar.

Skail is a perfectly self-contained release that further underscores Malcolm MacWatt’s skill as a storyteller as well as a musician.

A slow burn album that mingles confusion and clarity, despair and determination, “in brokenness we are whole,” she sings. Mary Chapin Carpenter will put you together again.

One Town Over makes you connect with that it means to be human, to have friends, lovers, children, dreams and a heart that can beat as well as be bruised.

While it contrasts Merry Hell’s more rousing, crowd singalong material, it is no less fuelled by the same heart and humanity and equally warrants a place in your collection.

In its journey from wreckage to rebirth, it reaches deep into what Yeats termed the rag and bone shop of the heart, and finds treasure within. One of her best.