Mike Davies

In lesser hands (and voice) there is a danger that such content matter and music could come across as fey or twee, but Kate Doubleday is as rooted in the earth  as she is in the spiritual and the result is an album to make your heart and soul flutter.

What Kind of Love is the latest offering from Danny Wilson and the boys which finds them in a brassy, Caledonian soul mood that will leave you with a warm glow on the inside.

Most of ‘Sundown Over Ghost Town’ was inspired by and written in Idaho City, a mostly abandoned former mining centre to the north of Eilen Jewell’s hometown of Boise, where she now lives, and provides the album’s reflective tone and lyrical threads. It is a more reflective, musically subdued work than some of her past outings, but it may well be her best yet.

Building a solid following and already a significant presence on the festival scene, in an age of  shooting stars that flare briefly and pass in the night, Thomas is an artist of solid, enduring substance and a real keeper.

Kent Folk-rock sextet Galley Beggar’s latest album does a damn good job of consolidating the tradition that began with Fairport Convention back in the late 60s.

TRADarrr is a folk rock big-band project whose core members are Gregg Cave, Mark Stevens, Marion Fleetwood, Guy Fletcher and PJ Wright with some notable guests as well. An album that will nestle very comfortably in the same CD wallet as such 70s folk rock classics as Please To See The King and Liege and Lief.

Dedicated to the late founding member and family patriarch, Lenny Barker, The Barker Band’s sixth album The Land We Hold Dear is already set be on the ‘Best of’ lists of 2015. It should be on yours.

Named after his late grandfather, who played in a marching band and on whose guitar he learned to play, Marching Donald is one Ryan Davies and this is his second self-released album. One that demonstrates an increasing mastery of his craft and a greater confidence in his own abilities. One to watch for.

Grassy Roads, Wandering Feet is organic in feel, it’s an unassuming album that never makes a big fuss about the members’ skills, simply allows them to do what they do with consummate and fluid grace and ease, and, as such, offers a very enjoyable travelling companion.

Celebrating the band’s 30th anniversary, for their 28th album Howe Gelb has put together a sort of retrospective, revisiting not old songs, but rather the styles the band has embraced over the years. Its tripartite musical nature makes it an eclectic listen, a reminder of what a diverse, influential and inspired Howe Gelb really is.

In her notes on the album, Thea writes that listening back to the old songs was like being haunted by the ghosts of her past. Rather than exorcise them, she’s given them new life while continuing to graffiti the wall of the music industry with music that matters, music with a heart and a mind rather than a corporate game plan. Long may she be “the girl that went and …

What started as a duo performance with long-term musical partner James Ross has grown to larger stages including Celtic Connections. Star guests include Rhiannon Giddens, Anna Massie, Heidi Talbot, Cathal McConnell and many more. That’s a big parlour!