Mike Davies

Carolina Sky is the first solo release from Pete McClelland who co-founded Hobgoblin Music with his wife, Mannie. With the songs focusing on a real and imagined journey across the USA, it’s a refreshing airy listen.

Multi-platinum and 7-time Grammy nominated singer-songwriter Joan Osborne offers up her interpretations of material spanning Bob Dylan’s oeuvre from the early classics to more recent material.

Double albums can often be an overindulgence with a surfeit of padding, but, a chance to show two sides to her musical sensibilities, this is well up there with the better ones.

Hoge may not be pushing any thematic or musical envelopes, but you can hear his heart beating in every track of what is a very solid and immensely listenable album.

For Beast Epic, his fourth solo release via Seattle’s Sub-Pop label, Iron & Wine returns to his introspective, confessional style with which he first made his name. It is the quieter more fragile moments that glow the brightest.

Joe Newberry and April Verch clearly had a great time recording ‘Going Home’ together and their enthusiasm for the material springs from the speakers, you just can’t help but be swept along on the tide.

Now based in New York, Ron Pope has released a dozen albums in the past ten years, ‘Work’, his thirteenth, was a conscious decision to recreate the music of any bar band worth their beer money, drawing on the experiences and people in his life from the age of thirteen.

Those who reach out and discover Steve Adey’s latest offering – Do Me A Kindness – will find themselves richly rewarded by its sonic inventiveness and exploration and Adey’s cathedral vault vocals.

Merry Hell’s ‘Come On, England!’ EP offers a rallying cry against the rising tide of nationalism and fascism and a call for tolerance and equality. Plus, watch their video for the title track.

The Spirit Moves is the fifth album from the Nashville-based Sean Scolnick aka Langhorne Slim, originally released in 2015 the album is getting a UK reissue to coincide with his August tour.

After four albums under the band name The Honeycutters, Amanda Anne Platt steps into the spotlight on their latest release. An often laid back mix of country, Americana and roots. On tour in the UK now.

Nashville-based singer-songwriter Rachel Baiman’s ‘Shame’ is a defiant album full of riches, a departure from her previously stripped down offerings, there’s plenty of groove-based offerings here despite the weight of the subject matter.