Mike Davies

‘Thea Gilmore’ is an album shaped by personal upheaval, self-reinvention, uncompromising determination and triumphant, empowered rebirth. Like a beacon, it leads the way out of the darkness.

Carried in Sound is an emotionally evocative album textured musically, vocally and lyrically with shadows and light, like a comforting flickering candle in the depth of darkness and storms; it’s easily the best thing that the Smoke Fairies have ever done.

On Sweet Revolution, the superb new album from Hannah White, the honesty of her words, music, and voice makes all the hurt within somehow beatific and transformational.

Even among the darkest moments of Kristen Grainger & True North’s ‘Fear of Falling Stars’, there’s a light somewhere on the horizon, bringing you back to listen again and again.

Dipped in an attractive psychedelic West Coast vibe, Half Stack’s latest offering, Sitting Pretty, shifts from previous whiskey-soaked rock to an overall more relaxed mellower feel.

Joined by Neilson Hubbard and Will Kimbrough, Dean Owens’s Pictures is an album haunted by ghosts and anchored by love, it might just well be the best he’s ever made.

Steeped in Blue-collar values, Americana singer-songwriter Ben Gage’s ‘Two Singing Songs’ is a welcome and fabulous first full-length studio release.

Intimate, stripped-back, folk Americana, the songs that make up Jeffrey Martin’s “Thank God We Left The Garden” are written with honesty, depth, wisdom, and insight.

Sad Lady Songs Vol 1 is further evidence of Amy Hollinrake’s burgeoning craft and growing reputation on the contemporary folk circuit. Vol 2 is eagerly anticipated.

An introspective journey through anxieties, fears, loss, need, loneliness and love; while Donland’s is not always the most uplifting of listens, it’s assuredly one of Jerry Leger’s finest works.

Grained with both aching and joy, ‘Behind Every Door’ is a heady, quietly intoxicating work that may well stand as Matt McGinn’s finest album to date.

Cormac O Caoimh’s ‘Where The World Begins’ covers themes of parenthood, autism and love. It’s a deeply personal and quite wonderful album.