Mike Davies

For his third album ‘The Big Wind’, Luke Elliot delivers another collection of brooding grandeur. While not the most uplifting of albums, he manages to create beauty out of the darkness.

He’s no contender, he’s no pretender, he’s someone who’s been on the canvas and got up to win the fight. And as this album once again proves, he has the heart and soul of a champion who stares truth in the eye and doesn’t flinch.

The Mammals return with a world-class album expanding their lineup to embrace bandmates old and recent as well as special guests.

Celticana is the second collection from the Aberdeen duo Steve Crawford & Spider MacKenzie. While its roots are firmly embedded in American traditions, the lyrics and narratives hail from Scotland.

London-based Hannah White joins forces with four Bergen musicians – The Nordic Connections – for an album that is anything but ordinary. Recorded live, she plunges fully into the 70s country sounds she’s only previously flirted with.

Like Animals is arguably her finest work to date, there are creature comforts to be had here and a certainty that, in fashion or note, the name Charlie Dore shows no sign of fading.

Country Darkness Vol 2 is the second EP in the My Darling Clementine collaboration with Elvis Costello’s longtime keyboardist Steve Nieve which again illuminates the musical genius of both parties.

This latest release from Smithsonian Folkways is enough to make old-time American music enthusiasts think all their Christmases have come at once. Doc Watson & Gaither Carlton should be an essential part of any old-time music aficionado’s collection.

Flew the Nest, the latest offering from Indie-Folk singer-songwriter Hayley Sabella, is an album of widescreen arrangements and intimate vocals, suffused with a sense of calm and tranquillity despite the sometimes turbulent nature of the feelings it charts.

While this unapologetically no-frills and sounding true to the originals album will appeal to old-time and Black string music fans, banjo and fiddle player Jake Blount offers plenty here to engage the casual listener too.

Keep On Running is the debut offering from Joe Edwards who hails from Devizes in rural Wiltshire. While it’s a well-travelled path, it’s a well-played, engagingly sung and assured calling card for future progress.

Steve Earle’s Ghosts of West Virginia draws on 2010’s Upper Big Branch coal mine explosion which, killing 29 miners, was one of the worst mining disasters in American history…The echoes of these ghosts haunt long after the album ends.