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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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Miraculous Mule: Old Bones, New Fire
New album: Channelling the spirit and sound of the Delta and Appalachian Mountains, a superbly evocative, haunting, powerful new release by the Anglo-Irish Londoners with reworked traditional blues and gospel given a stirring new lease of life
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New album: This third LP by the Australian artist typifies her intelligently written, nuanced, taut, intensely performed dream pop and alt-country, packed with confessional hidden narratives and subtleties, her expressive, fragile voice with stripped back accompaniment
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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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Jack White’s latest solo record – Entering Heaven Alive – his second of 2022
New album: Only three months since his fierce, high-octane LP Fear of The Dawn, the now Nashville-based artist’s second of the year is more of an folk songwriting record, with guitar, piano, some additional strings, with the feel of evening porch rendition, and even harks back to the more acoustic White Stripes numbers
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Tami Neilson’s fifth album Kingmaker
New album: The acclaimed New Zealand country singer returns with a triumphant fifth album including a duet with Willie Nelson, her strong, beautiful, dramatic delivery echoing the emotive power of Patsy Cline
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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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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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Angel Olsen’s sixth album, Big Time
New album: Majestic, slow-paced and emotionally powerful, an outstanding country-tinged dark folk dream-pop sixth LP by the American singer-songwriter inspired by liberation and grief – coming out to her aged parents in 2021 very shortly before their deaths
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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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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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Daniel Rossen’s debut solo album
New album: A mesmerically rich, beautifully swirling fusion of acoustic and flamenco guitar, symphonic folk, classic and jazz by by the Grizzly Bear guitarist and vocalist whose voice has the sensitivity, warmth and honest of Elliott Smith, in this wonderful solo debut
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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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Carson McHone’s Still Life
New album: Tremendously high-quality writing and performance by the singer-songwriter from Houston, Texas in this dynamic third album which mixes folk-country and Americana-rock, acoustic with electric, poignant lyrics and excellent vocals
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Big Thief’s campfire of inspiration
New album: Brooklyn’s Adrianne Lenker, Max Oleartchik, Buck Meek, and James Krivchenia return with a fifth and landmark double album of gorgeous, intelligent, free-flowing songwriting, mixing folk, pop, rock and country
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Decorated with one of his own paintings, Michael Hurley’s The Time of the Foxgloves
New album: Gorgeous new LP by the veteran 80-year-old American folk singer-songwriter, cartoonist and painter, whose first album was released in 1964, and this latest still employs his trusty, hissy four-track recorder, as well as duets with guest singers
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Starkly beautiful: The Crooked Carty Sings … with artwork by
New album: The Miraculous Mule frontman’s December solo album is a beautiful, tender, haunting, intimate, country and blues infused collection of “bastardised folk songs, murder ballads, traveller tunes and sea songs” variously with new lyrics and arrangements
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