country
Album: Ethel Cain - Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love YouThursday, 07 August 2025
This is a weird one: I do try and stay on top of pop culture, but for several years, Ethel Cain completely passed me by. You’d think I would have noticed a gothic bisexual Baptist trans woman achieving great enough success to be championed by Barack... Read more... |
Album: Molly Tuttle - So Long Little Miss SunshineMonday, 04 August 2025
Molly Tuttle is a star of the US bluegrass scene whose last couple of albums have broadened her appeal. On them she wandered into country, folk, and rock. She featured the likes of Gillian Welch, Dave Matthews and Old Crow Medicine Show, intimating... Read more... |
Album: Alex Warren - You'll Be Alright, KidFriday, 18 July 2025
The best-selling single so far this year in the UK is Californian singer Alex Warren’s “Ordinary”. It stayed at the top of the charts longer than any song this decade. If you’re not familiar, imagine the lyrical mood and production of Hosier’s “Take... Read more... |
Album: Tami Neilson - Neon CowgirlFriday, 11 July 2025
Tami Neilson’s career is long and storied. The short version is that she began with a 1990s Canadian family band (opening for Kitty Wells, aged 10!), moved to New Zealand and became a country star there, then, over the last decade, has been “... Read more... |
First Person: country singer Tami Neilson on the superpower of sisterhoodWednesday, 09 July 2025
I was born Tamara Lee Neilson. I had an Uncle Kenny and an Aunt Dolly (who played guitar and banjo, respectively). I mean, did I really have a choice to become anything but a Country singer?I fell in love with Dolly Parton when I was six years old,... Read more... |
Album: Mark Morton - Without the PainWednesday, 16 April 2025
Mark Morton is best known as a guitarist with US metallers Lamb of God. They’ve been going for three decades, established and successful, at the more extreme, thrashier end of the spectrum, but still achieving Top Five albums on the Billboard charts... Read more... |
Album: Toria Wooff - Toria WooffMonday, 24 March 2025
On the cover of her eponymous debut album, the Bolton-raised Toria Wooff reclines on a church pew located in Stanley Palace, a 16th-century mansion in her adopted city of Chester. In her hand, a Celtic Cross. Such imagery implies that what will be... Read more... |
Album: Jason Isbell - Foxes in the SnowFriday, 14 March 2025
America – the pro-wrestling-ass nation, the ultimate society of the spectacle – famously likes things big, and modern country and western music has gone along with that. Big hats, big trucks, big sentiment, big pop production, very big sales indeed... Read more... |
Album: Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - The Purple BirdWednesday, 29 January 2025
Somewhat astoundingly, The Purple Bird is Will Oldham’s album number 21 using his Bonnie “Prince” Billy alias. A fine set of alt country tunes, recorded in Nashville and largely co-written with producer David Ferguson, it also happily suggests that... Read more... |
Katy J Pearson, Saint Luke's and the Winged Ox, Glasgow review - warm-hearted songs to banish the coldThursday, 05 December 2024
'Tis the season for all manner of bugs, colds and illnesses. One had befallen Katy J Pearson, who struck an apologetic note after the night’s first number to say she had been unwell all day and was going to do her best to get through the gig. That... Read more... |
Album: Dolly Parton & Family - Smoky Mountain DNA - Family, Faith & FablesWednesday, 13 November 2024
This is almost too much to bear. This sprawling 37-track collection begins with the sainted 78-year-old Dolly Parton providing a jaunty spoken narration of her family’s history in music and the church. It’s old-school Disney documentary in tone, but... Read more... |
Album: Willie Nelson - Last Leaf on the TreeFriday, 01 November 2024
Well, seems like only yesterday when I reviewed Willie Nelson’s last album, Borderline, an excellent set from the man’s ninth decade, and now here comes Last Leaf on the Tree, a consummate set that’s at a higher level.It opens with Tom Waits’ title... Read more... |
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