Red River Dialect: Abundance Welcoming Ghosts review – alert, anti-colonialist folk

Songwriter David Morris brings alternate seduction and disquiet on this worldly album steeped in the British landscape

Show of Hands: Battlefield Dance Floor review – folk stalwarts keep it fresh

For anyone aspiring to longevity in popular music, the west country duo of Steve Knightley and Phil Beer offer valuable lessons. The pair got together in 1986 and this, remarkably, is their 18th studio album. It helps to have a … Continue reading →

The Waterboys review – breathless, hair-prickling Big Music

Pan-Celtic post-punk returns with a dash of tambourines and a swirl of mysticism as Mike Scott leads his genre-hopping crew

Cam review – everything about this country star rings true

One of Nashville’s most potent truth-tellers does a remarkable job of fusing west coast liberalism and country tropes in a show underpinned by modern dictates

Prom 49: The Lost Words review – Beethoven to beatboxing as climate crisis set to music

Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris’s bestselling book inspired this ambitious family Prom that celebrated the natural world

Rowan Rheingans: The Lines We Draw Together review – tracing extremism’s slow creep

Drawing on stories about life in 1940s Germany, this handsome album contains a powerful narrative about racism and intolerance

Širom: A Universe That Roasts Blossoms for a Horse review – pan-global steampunk faux folk

Three classically-trained musicians from Slovenia make meticulously plotted episodic music that sounds lopsided

Karine Polwart’s Scottish Songbook review – from Big Country to John Martyn

The C90 cassette unspooling on the sleeve makes an apt motif for an album that is both a tribute to Scottish pop and a personal testimony from Caledonia’s reigning folk queen. Not that there’s much folk involved; most of the … Continue reading →

Lucinda Williams review – battle-scarred alt.country star burns bright

The singer brings poignancy and raw feeling to this revealing celebration of her defining album Car Wheels on a Gravel Road

Laura Cannell & Polly Wright: Sing as the Crow Flies review – lost voices in folktales

The duo’s album is based on a 19th-century book of Norfolk customs and ballads, decorated with powerful improvised vocals

Spell Songs: The Lost Words review – a literary landscape brought to life

The vivid, poetic nature writing of Robert Macfarlane has touched a sweet spot in the national psyche, making him a bestseller and provoking a groundswell of concern for language, landscape and history. Spell Songs sets Macfarlane’s garlanded The Lost Words … Continue reading →

Kokoko!: Fongola review – commanding percussive DIY from DRC innovators

Euphoric debut album by a unique collective who use home-made instruments to bring street-party energy and punk attitude to their hybrid sound

75 Dollar Bill: I Was Real review – placeless, gripping grooves

(tak:til/Thin Wrist)

Jesca Hoop: Stonechild review – a rocky path through tragedy and joy

The brooding singer has created a knotty and sometimes maddening fifth album that holds some poignant gems

House and Land: Across the Field review – a magical recasting of music history

Electronic experimentalism duels with classic banjo sounds for this ambient, affecting new twist on American folk music