Mike Davies

Almost four years since the release of their debut album, the Glasgow sextet, James Edwyn & The Borrowed Band, return with a solid and harder-edged set of guitar-driven alt-country.

Chris Stapleton’s ‘From A Room: Volume 1’ has just recently walked away with the CMA Best Album award. Based on the strength of Volume 2, they might as well start engraving that 2018 Album of the Year award now.

On their second in a proposed trilogy of EPs, India Electric Co demonstrate that they are out there on the cutting edge of reinterpreting traditional folk music for the modern era while never losing sight of the past.

Bring Back Home is the fifth studio album from Ange Hardy. It is one that is yet further testament that she’s a shining beacon illuminating the byways of traditional folk for today’s landscape, you should be beating a  path to its door.

The latest offering from Don Merckle offers a short but highly effective and, for many, resonant portrait of the experiences and feelings of those called to do their duty and for whom war seemed to offer the only escape from hard times.

Wild & Reckless was born from the stage production that Blitzen Trapper spent the better part of a year producing….a terrific album. “The wind don’t always blow and the sun don’t always shine”, sings Earley on the closing track, but the weather report here is just fine.

The press notes for Spades and Roses talk about the power of songs to help find peace, clarity and hope amidst the emotional wreckage of our everyday lives. Caroline Spence  is a testament to that.

One-third of The Sweet Water Warblers, Mother Lion is the latest offering from Michigan-born May Erlewine, a further nugget in a goldmine of soulful folksy Americana. A tour with her own band is planned for the UK which is sure to widen her fanbase here.

On Langhorne Slim’s latest album ‘Lost At Last Vol 1 he sets out to challenge the idea of social rigidity and encourages us all to reconnect and fall in love with our phones off – getting lost is the cost of being free. Throw away the map and grab yourself a copy.

Thunder and Rain are a four-piece from Colorado who draw on roots in traditional bluegrass and folk spliced with elements of pop and rock. Start Believing is their second album and one that should go a long way to getting their name known on the Americana circuit.

It’s not unusual for artists plying an Americana trade to be likened to Townes Van Zandt, John Prine and Bob Dylan – it’s rare for a female singer to attract such comparisons. Vancouver’s Steph Cameron is both an exception and exceptional. This is just the start of what promises to be a brilliant career.

Subtitled Songs of the Sea, Coast, Fishing, Rivers, Lovers and Banishment, The Turn of the Tide is Pete McClelland’s second album within a few months. We recommend you should put the boat out and shore up the collection with this too.