Mike Davies

If you ever wished there had been a whole album to go with ‘Fairytale of New York’ then ‘Middle Aged Love’ is your perfect unhappy ever after.

Drew Holcomb’s seventh album ‘Medicine’ is a slow burn listen that, in keeping with title, does you good and really should be taken on a daily basis.

Amelia Curran’s latest album is even better than its predecessor. So much so that Mike marks it out as the first of his ‘best albums of 2015’, one which offers greater rewards with each successive play.

Goodnight Lenin release their much anticipated full length debut album ‘In the Fullness of Time’. They don’t disappoint as Mike selects it as one of his albums of the year.

40 Watts is the side project of Katie West, one half of Truckstop Honeymoon. On the evidence of ‘After The Show’ she could light up an entire city.

With founding members David Lowery and Johnny Hickman at the helm Cracker release a double-album that captures two diverse musical and political sides of California.

The reissue of Micah P Hinson and The Gospel of Progress by French label Talitres restores the vision of one of the most critically acclaimed albums of 2004.

A feathery air may inform the album’s ambience, but behind it lie deceptively and disarmingly moving literate songs that catch you unawares with the acumen of their images and emotions.

There’s a whole battalion of bands out there making this sort of retro rock, but the Oregon based quartet The Parson Red Heads are carrying the flag not following it.

Another fine offering from Parsons Thibaud – the melodies are both simple and sublime, the emotion palpable and the voices, both alone and together, quite soulfully magnificent.

Dark folk acoustic trio headed by Polly of Polly and the Billets Doux come over all festive on their latest offering.

Kirsty McGee & The Hobopop Collective’s ‘Those Old Demons’ is, without question, not just the finest work she’s yet released, but one of the best albums of the year.