Albums

★★★★★ James Deane’s Diamonds & Hearts has some clever and effective lyrical approaches, a great voice, and a winning way with a guitar.

★★★★★ Sentimental Gentleman is the latest album from Snailhouse, the moniker under which the Montreal singer/songwriter Mike Feuerstack is known by.

Findlay Napier gives us a behind the scenes account of Scots Trad Music Awards 2011, the nearest thing Scottish folkies have to the office Christmas party!

★★★★★ Cahalen Morrison & Eli West’s ‘The Holy Coming of the Storm’ gets a big thumbs up!

★★★★★ A Future Tethered is the latest release from Butcher the Bar, an easy listening pop folk album but lacking a heartfelt approach.

★★★★★ The new album from husband and wife duo Rapunzel and Sedayne, ‘Songs from the Barley Temple’, is a mesmerising mixture of old folk ballads and newly penned songs.

★★★★ Lincoln Durham’s debut album The Shovel vs The Howling Bones has all the markings of an early classic.

★★★★★ Emily Portman’s new EP ‘Hinge of the Year’ is a stunning release that mixes tradition with dark fairytale like twists. Wherever she takes her inspiration from I hope it is bottomless!

Jeffrey Foucault’s Cold Satellite finally sees a European release. The songs are based around unpublished poems and fragments from the young poet Lisa Olstein.

★★★★★ Read our latest interview with Three Cane Whale, a multi-instrumental trio from Bristol with a fresh, innovative approach to music.

★★★★★ The Woodbine & Ivy Band are a group of Manchester musicians who have gathered the cream of British folk singers to create one of the best folk albums of our time.

★★★★★ Few bands manage to combine playfulness in melody with heartfelt lyrics in the way Goodnight Lenin do.