Mike Davies

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.

If Rory Butler keeps up the sort of quality evidenced here, he’ll not be looking back on a career where anything was wasted. Go and buy it.

Dark and yet cleansing, while the skies that Cinder well sings of may be overcast, there is a light that shines through this album that warms the chill in the soul.

Expanding contributions and embracing The Jayhawks’ broader influences, XOXO’s wide-ranging musical moods reaches out to a wider audience while never disappointing the faithful.

Sofia Talvik revisits Paws of a Bear for a stripped-back rework featuring just voice and guitar, all one take re-recordings that bring an added intimacy to the pervasive melancholia.

Born in Tribes is an auspicious debut and Lisa Marini has the potential to be one of the most significant voices of the next decade and beyond.