Mike Davies

An album that ranks up there with Springsteen’s The Ghost of Tom Joad in its vision of a world bereft of hope… Bostick has tapped into the zeitgeist with a songbook of the times worthy of Steinbeck and Guthrie.

Dan Whitehouse’s Dreamland Tomorrow offers two musically contrasting albums, but both consummate expressions of a master craftsman and wordsmith at the peak of his prowess. It is an album deserving of wide commercial success.

Sins We Made is the sophomore outing by Canadian duo Harrow Fair which blasts out of the starting gate. It’s a truly terrific album, indulge in the sins they’ve made, and listen and repent at listening leisure.

2020 is a collection of songs that serve both as a call to arms and a reminder of the beauty and decency that still exists. Fuelled by resonant songs that are both about and for the world today, this is an album of the year in more than just its title.

As well as offering a career snapshot for the faithful, this serves as a handy enticement to newcomers to dig further into Dean Owens’ catalogue and discover what they’ve been missing.

Call the Captain, the new album from Western Centuries, is a genre-melding, unconventional country outfit, the more you listen the more nuances you’ll find in both the music and the words, heed the call.

Well-polished but never sterile, it may take a few plays to seep in,  but its smooth mix of mellow warmth sharp observation has a lingering taste.

True Hand True Heart is the follow-up to The Remedy Club’s well-received 2017 debut on which they ably consolidate their rising star trajectory with this Nashville-recorded collection produced by Ray Kennedy.

On the track “Move”, Hiatt sings about getting your shit together, facing up to your issues and dealing with things, something she has clearly accomplished to formidable effect as this confident, assured and hugely accessible album shows.

Five years on from the last album, Clem Snide is resurrected with Eef Barzelay and Scott Avett working in collaboration – “That this record even exists, as far as I’m concerned, is a genuine miracle”, says Barzeley. Listening, you can only agree.

Honest, stark, intimate and open, listening takes you back to the time when names like Tim Hardin, Bob Lind, Eric Anderson, the young Paul Simon and Walker were singing in the coffee bars to mesmerised audiences.

Featuring guests such as Kris Delmhorst, Pieta Brown, Tift Merritt and Kenneth Pattengale, Blood Brothers finds Foucault returning to his earlier folksier realms.