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Plains on the roadside: Katie Crutchfield and Jess Williamson
New album: A high-quality classic country duet album with beautifully interweaving vocals by Katie Crutchfield (aka Waxahatchee) and Texas songwriter Jess Williamson embellished with soft-brushed drums, banjo, steel guitar, road and porch scenes, and heartbreak
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Bill Callahan’s new album’s YTILAER plays mischief with search engines
New album: Dreams, horses, darkness and uplifting otherworldliness feature in this wonderful, mischievously mirror-titled ninth LP under the Smog artists’s own name, pouring out velvet voiced beauty, vivid lines, deadpan humour, acoustic intimacy and full band momentum
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Jake Blount
New album: After his acclaimed 2020 solo debut Spider Tales, the American bluegrass fiddler, banjo player, Afrofuturist and historian returns with a starkly beautiful, atmospheric album drawing on old spiritual numbers and set in a climate-changed, apocalyptic world
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Delicately melancholy: Cass McCombs’ Heartmind
New album: This tenth LP by the American folk, psych and alt-country singer-songwriter brings songs of perfect, effortless poise and weight, with touching, melancholy, moving, philosophical tales of musicians and soldiers, karaoke machines and fast-food restaurants, and is dedicated to departed musicians Chet JR White, Sam Jayne and Neal Casal
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Amanda Shires: taking no prisoners
New album: Stirring, potent folk-country-power-pop by the Texan singer-songwriter and violinist and Highwomen founder, who on this 10th solo album extends her stylistic repertoire with orchestral and almost Radiohead-like guitar atmospherics alongside her expressive, emotive voice
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Tender and low key: Florist by Florist
New album: After 2019’s Emily Alone when Brooklyn singer songwriter Emily Sprague recorded the LP on her own, the band four-piece reunite for a beautiful lo-fi indie folk 16-track album of tenderness, rough edges, woozy sounds and rainy porch acoustic
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Katy J Pearson’s second album, Sound Of The Morning
New album: The Bristol singer’s second album, packed with strong numbers, sees her developing her range from Americana and country styles to indie and synthpop, moving from the tender to the uptempo, her voice at times echoing the voice of Stevie Nicks
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Joan Shelley: The Spur
New album: Pure of voice, with gently acoustic accompaniment, perfectly weighted melody and perceptive lyric, a gorgeous new ninth album by the Kentucky folk musician, including a number with Bill Callahan
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Laura Veirs comes out of a darkness
New album: Sensitive, quirky, melancholy, intimate, candid, and wonderfully beautiful folk-pop by the Portland singer-songwriter dappled with acoustic instruments and arresting lines is her 12th, but first LP after splitting from her husband and longtime producer
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Fern Maddie: Ghost Story
Debut album: Terrific first LP by the Vermont singer-songwriter, guitarist and banjo player who draws influence from English, Irish and Scottish folk who has a talent for poignant lyrics, beautiful playing and a quiet, but striking voice
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Jessie Buckley and Bernard Butler: For All Our Days That Tear The Heart
New album: An outstanding collaboration between the Irish actress and singer and the former Suede guitarist with this beautiful album of passionate, dramatic, folk music of various international styles, with all the added depth, subtlety, dynamism of emotional power of both Jeff Buckley and Joni Mitchell
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Wilco’s double album, Cruel Country
New album: With a double-edged title referring to both style and content, the Chicago band return with a strong, 21-track double album of country-edged music brimful with fine melodies, melancholy but sharply pointed lyrics
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Kevin Morby’s vivid new album This Is A Photograph
New album: Tender, uplifting, sensitive and moving, the seventh LP by the Texas-born, Kansas-raised singer-songwriter is full of richly vivid lyrics wrapped in strong Americana folk-pop and a vocal delivery that echoes mid-70s Bob Dylan
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Sharon Van Etten’s sixth album
New album: Powerful, passionate, personal and one of her best yet, this sixth album by the New Jersey singer-songwriter has hugely relevant themes, her songs addressing how we might protect the things most precious to us from destructive forces beyond our control
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Sarah Beth Tomberlin
New album: Gentle, beautiful fragility and vulnerability abounds in this second album by the Brooklyn singer-songwriter, who sings about insecurity, isolation and relationships with great tenderness with minimal instrumentation
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Kurt Vile pictured with daughters on his new album cover
New album: As laid-back in style as anyone out there, but also strongly personal and filled with vivid lyrical detail, the Philadelphia singer-songwriter’s seventh solo album is deliciously melodious and worth several listens
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Midlake’s fifth album, the first since 2013
New album: Very welcome fifth LP from the Texas folk-rockers after nine-year gap, again with Eric Pulido taking on lead vocals, but a more settled sound than 2013’s Antiphon, and a dedication to the deceased father of keyboardist and flautist Jesse Chandler
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New album: The Atlanta duo of Mattiel Brown and Jonah Swilley return with their third album, a splendid set of songs filled with sharp, profound lyrics and strong melodies, expressing a dusty US highway, spanning indie, rock, and a dash of country, and Cake
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Nicely worn in: Widowspeak’sThe Jacket
New album: Laid-back, lo-fi and easy on the ears, the Brooklyn duo of Molly Hamilton and guitarist Robert Earl Thomas return with they sixth LP of indie-Americana of slow, but self-assured numbers
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Debut album: Wonderful debut by the Irish pop-country singer – Dublin’s Ciara Mary Alice Thompson has the melodies of Dolly, the panache of Glen Campbell, the range of Kate Bush, but above all a searing wit powered by self-deprecation and a caustically humorous instinct for tragedy
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