Albums

Way Out I’ll Wander, the latest offering from Hannah Read, is a fine achievement: listening to each of its songs is like watching the snow settle in an exquisitely crafted snow globe, revealing an image of pristine clarity.        

While the Matthews Southern Comfort band and the sound have, like the bourbon, mellowed warmly with age, the kick is still there on their latest offering ‘Like A Radio’.

Songs for Somewhere Else is another worthy addition to the British branch of the Parsons legacy library curated by the likes of Teenage Fan Club, The Goat Roper Band and Lewis & Leigh.

While Oslo-based Norwegian trio Darling West have been making wider ripples with some high profile tour support, this new album sees them turn those ripples into waves.

For the follow-up to 2015’s Into The Sea and his debut for At The Helm, Dean Owens took himself off to Nashville to enlist the services of go-to producer Nielson Hubbard. Southern Wind is an album that fully deserves to take Dean Owens’ career to a higher level.

There are big projects, there are gargantuan labours of love, and then there is this. The Self Preservation Society is an ambitious vinyl collection of songs from the late 1960s and early 1970s performed by the likes Eliza Carthy, Teddy Thompson, Marry Waterson and many others.

A joy for genre purists and roots novitiates alike, this is among the year’s finest debut albums and assures Dattani a place at the same table as those that have both influenced and fuelled his love of the music he plays.

Neon may be an album of night, of place, of colour and light. But it is also an album of contrasts, contrasts that are subtle, contrasts that are hidden in the words and contrasts that look into the emotional light and dark.

Make Way For Love was born at the end of a longtime relationship with fellow musician Aldous Harding. A break-up album drenched in melancholia, Williams’ songs are incredibly well-crafted reflecting both the personal and universal.

It’s taken 32 years to come up with an album that fully lives up to the euphoric promise of The Weather Prophets’ Almost Prayed, but those prayers have finally been answered with Pete Astor’s One For The Ghost.

Maria catches Sierra Hull live at Celtic Connections…There can be no doubt that Sierra Hull is a genuine rising star, and it will be fascinating to see what direction this hugely creative, charming and assured young talent will decide to take next.

New albums from Beth Nielsen Chapman seem few and far between, but when they do arrive they’re solid gold. Hearts Of Glass is no exception. Her decision to bring in Sam Ashworth as producer has fostered a new setting for her music, one that offers her engaging lyrics room to breathe.