Mike Davies

The Mammals latest album Sunshiner opens to a glorious upbeat track and ends on an epic ten-minute song. An album with attitude that promises to make you ‘think, dance, feel’. What more could you ask for?

Young Valley are an Americana five-piece from Jackson, Mississippi, their eponymous sophomore release augers well with its balance of ballads and more southern infused rock. One to watch for.

Changing Colours is the latest album from The Sheepdogs. With the broader musical palette on offer and the substantial quality throughout, this may well be the album that finds them attracting a broader audience outside their native Canada.

With Cahalen Morrison, Ethan Lawton and Jim Miller all taking lead vocals, writing the songs and switching between instruments, honky-tonk supergroup Western Centuries offer a range of colours – Country songs to drink to, dance to and cry to, get lost in the flood.

The cumulative effect of ‘The Great Untold’ is at once stilling, affirmative and inspiring, as you emerge at the other end as if you’ve been soaking in a bath of aural dead sea salts.  Matthews says that when he’s writing, “I’m almost hearing voices from The Masters and thinking: ‘Would they approve?’” Most assuredly.

Connecticut singer-songwriter Jesse Terry returns with his fifth album ‘Natural’. Featuring a collection of duets with his favourite female singers it’s an incredibly soothing album – a natural remedy to ease away the stress at the end of the day.

All praise to Fledg’ling for not only rescuing this superb collection from wherever it had been gathering dust but, in the process, bringing West’s name back into the spotlight she deserves as one of the great revivalists of American folk music

Born in London, but raised in Brooklyn, The High Cost of Living Strange is Ben de la Cour’s fourth album. Trading in what he terms Americanoir, this album won’t let you down.

Old-school string bands have been seeing something of a revival in recent years, and The Tillers, as demonstrated on their latest album, are certainly up front leading the charge.

Musically jovial but lyrically dark, this is solid old-school bluegrass filtered through a punk sensibility, more Pogues than Krauss, fuelled with an energy that suggests they also tear the roof off live.

Edgeland is Kim Richey’s eighth album that finds her working with producer Brad Jones and a bunch of seasoned studio hands that include Dan Dugmore, Pat McLaughlin, Chuck Prophet and Robyn Hitchcock. This has Grammy written all over it.

This is Marina’s third album, a gathering together of reworkings of past singles and previously unavailable material that again serves to make you thankful she finally got round to committing her music to disc.