New album: Luxuriant genre-spanning rock, pop, country and more in this debut by the Belfast old schoolfriend duo of Mollie McGinn and Orlaith Forsythe, with echoes of artists from Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks, Shania Twain, HAIM, as well as contemporaries CMAT, and The Last Dinner Party
Read moreCindy Lee: Diamond Jubilee
New album: One of the most unusual releases of the year – 32 tracks, more than 2 hours, with the style from an indeterminate era, perhaps ghostly love song echoes of 60s girl groups – come delicate and crash-bang electric guitar, percussion and vocals from the glammed-up alter ego of Canadian songwriter, guitarist, and drag performer Patrick Flegel
Read moreIron & Wine: Light Verse
New album: A poetic latest release indeed North Carolina’s Sam Beam, packed with beautiful lyrics and melodies, articulate alternative folk, rock and country with flavours of Paul Simon and Cat Stevens, filled with vivid fictional and personal insights, desperate characters and wide-eyed optimists, heartache, tears and laughter including an appearance by Fiona Apple
Read moreLeyla McCalla: Sun Without The Heat
New album: A deliciously uplifting fifth solo LP by the American singer-songwriter and mult-instrumentalist, fusing folk, country, Americana, Afrobeat to Brazilian tropicalismo
Read moreTaylor Swift: The Tortured Poets Department - The Anthology
New album: The American omnipresent megastar returns with a surprise but also widely well-received 11th LP – a twisting, voluminous collection of 31 songs (Anthology version) of luxuriant pop, but packed with extremely caustic, often brilliantly dark, cutting break-up lyrics
Read moreGrace Cummings: Ramona
New album: Slow, inexorable, compelling beauty in the powerful voice of the Melbourne singer-songwriter and actor, here, following 2022’s extraordinary Storm Queen, with a less raw, more lavishly orchestrated sound and grandeur, to express themes such as grief and self-destruction and emotional violence
Read moreBeyoncé: Cowboy Carter
New album: A big, bold rhinestone-studded musical statement from the US megastar, delving deep into country & western territory and cross-pollinating with pop, soul, rock and R&B, with added Beatles, and guests including Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson and Miley Cyrus on this whopping 27-track LP
Read moreWaxahatchee: Tigers Blood
New album: Following 2020’s acclaimed album Saint Cloud, Alabama-raised, Kansas City-based singer-songwriter Katie Crutchfield returns with a strong, solid, steady release that sits comfortably in the middle ground of Americana, pop and country
Read moreAdrianne Lenker: Bright Future
New album: The Big Thief singer-songwriter returns with another solo folk album – minimally exquisite, delicate, at times heartbreakingly, with a title that is ambiguous - a future that could be beautiful and dazzling, but also blinding and burning
Read moreHannah Frances: Keeper of the Shepherd
New album: A beautiful, brilliantly experimental folk fifth album by the Chicago singer-songwriter, with seven songs of alternative structures, guitar tunings, grief, loss and dizzying displacement, intimacy and energy, lyrical images of caves, shepherds, sheep, ribs and rivers
Read moreFaye Webster: Underdressed At The Symphony
New album: Gentle, reflective indie with flecks of country in this fifth LP by the Atlanta singer-songwriter, capturing tiny, intimate details of life’s in-between, under-the-radar moments, and inspired by the idea of slipping late in the audience at an Atlanta Symphony Orchestra concert
Read moreHurray For The Riff Raff: The Past Is Still Alive
New album: New Orleans-based Alynda Segarra’s ninth album is a classy, intelligent emotional mix of country and folk, travelling in time and place reflecting on her youth, family, community, ups and downs, and life’s passing
Read moreReal Estate: Daniel
New album: Warm, engaging, easygoing alt-folk-country-pop by the Brooklyn band with their sixth album, here given a name as if a person, but also produced by acclaimed songwriter Daniel Tashian at the famous RCA Studio A, in Nashville
Read morePregoblin: Pregoblin II
New album: A long-awaited LP of brilliantly effortless, fun-filled experimental pop - clever, wryly humorous, gently melancholic, mischievously playful - by the strangely under acclaimed south London band fronted by singer-songwriters Alex Sebley and Jessica Winter
Read moreGrandaddy: Blu Wav
New album: This serene, sixth LP from California’s Jason Lytle brings that meltingly beautiful melancholic voice, slow, caressed guitars, country pedal steel (Max Hart) and some Beach Boys echoes with themes of loneliness dotted with droll humour
Read moreVera Sola: Peacemaker
New album: Oozing style and sophistication, the smoky, velvety-voiced American singer-songwriter returns with a follow-up her 2018 debut, Shades, with a sublime set of vivid, poetic, atmospheric songs, laced with a Nashville-recorded country, folk and ghostly, theatrical twang, and influences from Tom Waits to Dvořák
Read moreJ Mascis: What Do We Do Now
New album: Like Neil Young, a fine wine or a classic car, the Dinosaur Jr frontman returns with another (his fifth) solo LP, with melodies of ever maturing, timeless quality, rich in guitar, piano and that distinctive, emotive, croaky voice
Read moreKaty Kirby: Blue Raspberry
New album: Following 2021’s strong debut Cool Dry Place, the Texas singer-songwriter returns with another collection of intelligent, sharply observed numbers with beautiful clarity of voice, fine balance of instrumentation, unflinching honesty, great turn of phrase, and powerful melodies
Read moreGruff Rhys: Sadness Sets Me Free
New album: The effortlessly talented Welshman, former Super Furry Animals frontman and all round nice guy returns with a gorgeously bittersweet album of wry humour and fabulous tunes inspired by the joys of writing about sad subjects
Read moreFavourite albums of 2023 Part 2: Anohni to Blur to Mitski, Ren to Sufjan Stevens
Welcome once again to the annual tradition of Song Bar’s favourite album releases of 2023. This is Part 2, and Part 1 was yesterday. There’s no such thing as a chart rundown or ‘best of’ here, and these come in no particular order …
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