Heather Little Even Better Now CRS
An appetiser before the release of her new studio album, EVENBETTER NOW, this recording features remodelled versions of several songs that were included in Lindale, Texas-born, singer-songwriter Heather Little’s acclaimed 2024 album BY NOW. The revisited songs include additional input from like-minded artists that were approached by producer Brian Brinkerhoff (Nathan Bell, Shannon McNally) to refashion the original recordings. Also included are four solo studio recordings by Little that will be featured in their fully fleshed shape in her forthcoming album.
It was welcome news that Little returned to the recording studio after a ten-year break from the release of her 2013 debut record WINGS LIKE THESE from 2013. An exceptional songwriter, hugely regarded by her peers, she has had her songs recorded by Sunny Sweeney, Miranda Lambert (I Don’t Love Here Anymore was the standout track from Lambert’s 2005 album KEROSENE), and Keith Urban. By her own admission, her writing is primarily autobiographical. With three failed marriages and a career that began in her mid-teens, she has accumulated many life experiences to write about.
The songs that also appeared on BY NOW include Sunset Inn, which features Hannah White on backing vocals and recalls a traumatic period in the writer’s life that necessitated leaving home and taking shelter in various medium-term rented rooms and shelters. Bones is injected with even more atmosphere than the original version by the contribution of Irish traditional band Fourwinds, and in particular the haunting concertina input by Caroline Keane. Retaining that connection with Irish artists, the title track includes vocals by Noelie McDonnell, Noriana Kennedy, and Nicola Joyce of Galway-based band, The Whileaways. Stefan Prigmore shares vocals with Little on the sorrowful ballad Razor Wire.
Tinged with sadness, the stripped-back acoustic solo Just Like Trains and She Knows are powerful stories of helplessness and abandonment. In contrast, there is a sense of defiance and fearlessness in Won’t Be Sorry.
If Heather Little’s album from last year, BY NOW, passed you by, you are well advised to check this one out. Her accolade as a ‘songwriter’s songwriter’ is well earned. Still, she richly deserves to be recognised well beyond the music industry, and this, and last year’s record, could well be the stepping stone for much wider recognition.
Declan Culliton
Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band New Threats From The Soul Tough Love
Harking back to an era when bands like Lambchop, Okkervil River, 16 Horsepower and David Berman’s Silver Jews were challenging mainstream country and rock music with what was tagged Alt-Country, Ryan Davis has been treading a similar path. Described by the late Berman (during Davis’s former days as band leader in State Champion) as ‘the best lyricist that’s not a rapper going,’ that accolade still rings true in his more recent mission, Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band.
DANCING ON THE EDGE from 2023, with a title that precisely describes the essence of the album, was Davis's return to songwriting following a five-year pause. A seven-song collection that ran for over fifty minutes and ranged from good-humoured rambling banter to fearful observations, it could have slipped under the radar, but fortunately, it earned consistently positive reviews. NEW THREATS FROM THE SOUL follows a similar format and is equally intriguing. Again, the record features seven tracks. This time, it’s fifty minutes long and, like its predecessor, requires a fully attentive listen, with headphones advised and ideally in one sitting.
‘I left my wallet in El Segundo; I left my true love in a West Lafayette escape room. She had the kind of smile to get a blue swine in trouble,’ Davis tells us in a relaxed voice on the title and opening track. It’s as close to a love song, although without a happy ending, that Davis has penned, and Catherine Irwin of Freakwater, one of many guesting contributors, adds well-placed harmonies. The woozy Monte Carlo/No Limits, sounding like a collage of songs pieced together, also confronts a fizzled-out romance, and former, less complicated times are considered in The Simple Joy (‘And life was a safe if you could crack it or not…’Till I grew up and started living alone’), Will Oldham adds his vocals on this track. A contrite Davis confronts these failed liaisons in the countryfied Better If You Make Me (‘I can change for the better, if you make me’).
The semi-spoken delivery in Mutilation Springs adds to the dark message contained within the song, like a desperate look out of a half-opened door at the unfolding carnage that threatens to take over (‘Forsaken punks flip for police force work, And worse, then gift their king horse’). Mutilation Falls that follows three tracks later does little to lift the gloom or introduce an iota of optimism, (‘They waste no flowers on our graves but pray where our remains are really at. They pray for the beauty queen but more so for her parents’).
There’s no happy ending on the album either. Crass Shadow (At Walden Pawn), which brings the tales of unbridled despair to an end, finds its author clinging on for dear life as what may be a final wave of helplessness threatens to smother him.
Very much an inkling of what lies in Davis's inner mind, with gorgeous arrangements that add a degree of lightness to hard-hitting lyrics, NEW THREATS FROM THE SOUL is a riveting listening experience that I’ll be returning to many times in the near future.
Declan Culliton
Kirsten Adamson Dreamviewer Last Day
'I'm not the person that I'm not, I'm not the thing you think you got. I'm just a complicated fool, like any other Joe, I'm a little hung up on my life,' announces Kirsten Adamson in My Life, the opening track on her second solo album, DREAMVIEWER.
Adamson’s 2023 record MY LANDING PLACE was a deeply personal affair, opening the album with two heartfelt songs directed at her parents, No Other Mother (‘You’re like no other mother – and you’re mine’) and My Father’s Songs (‘But I never knew my father, 'Til I sang my father’s songs’). Disappointments and troubled times also got an airing on a number of brooding ballads on that record. That theme of soul searching and meditation on life’s challenges is also at the heart of DREAMVIEWER.
As the album title suggests, it includes phantasmal-like narratives but also some plainly spoken bittersweet hindsight. If the opening track is a stout-hearted, 'this is me, warts and all,' Adamson drifts closer to shifting trains of thought elsewhere in the record. A case in point is the striking song In The Next Life, which camouflages a deep-rooted thought process with a jangly, power-poppy arrangement. That tempo is matched in the punchy and hugely impressive Back Seat Driver, a tale of pipe dreams and high hopes thwarted by life’s grinding realities. Enhanced by Joe Harvey-Whyte's weepy pedal steel, Perfume is a cry for the return of childhood innocence and the casting off of self-imposed shackles.
Fond memories of cherished times in a relationship, sadly exhausted, are revisited in Valley and the Pines ('Wipe the tears from my cheek, wind on through the valleys and the pines. Some scars are too wide to heal in a lifetime'). The title track closes the album on a hopeful note, bookending a project that journeys from remembrance to yearning, but ultimately with an undercurrent of resolve and inner strength.
Recorded at Karma Studios in London and produced by Joe Harvey-Whyte, Adamson was joined by her backing band The Tanagers, Jon McKenzie, who co-wrote nine of the album's eleven songs, on guitar, Fred Abbott on Hammond, piano and backing vocals, and the rhythm section of Scott Forsyth and Richard Anderson.
Whether intentional or not, Adamson's Scottish lineage shines brightly across the album. Her splendid and natural vocals thankfully avoid any adopted accent, and Harvey-White has her voice perfectly placed in the mix. I also get echoes of a range of artists from the folk leanings of Eddie Reader to the melody of Teenage Fanclub and the Celtic rock of her father, Stuart Adamson's band, Big Country. All in all, an album that packs a hefty punch by an artist whose work gets better and better with each recording.
Declan Culliton
Rosy Nolan Main Attraction Self Release
Proving that the Los Angeles alt-country scene is continuing to thrive, we have Rosy Nolan and her new album. Ten tracks that offer a pleasing look back at how the music of that region developed from earlier times to today. A part of that journey was drumming in an all girl punk band at the age of 15, which was a time that inherently meant a lot to her. Later she widened her vision, getting into a scene that was more founded in techno and electronic music. All the time keeping the energy and anger of punk at her core. She grew up around music, theatre, and circus, activities her father was immersed in during her childhood and that remain a part of her performance. His leaving the family when she was young also marked another life-changing time in her upbringing. That nomadic musical search eventually brought her to country music, its history, and self-relating songwriters like Lucinda Williams. All of these were formative for her.
The album starts, as it means to continue, with Dead On The Vine, which, as the title suggests, doesn’t hold much hope for a current relationship. This theme will be consistent throughout the album, as it has been in country music songs for a very long time. A shuffle it allows Nolan’s voice to be upfront and surrounded by fiddle and upright steel. The fiddle (by Julian McClannahan) with its old-time feel is a key to the sound here and again drives How It Feels To Fall In Love. Utilising a more acoustic sound, it stands out with a strong vocal chorus, and Dirk Powell's addition of accordion helps to emphasise its expression of love. She wrote this track with fellow artist Ted Russell Kamp.
Also sounding like it came from a lost 50s album is Them’s The Breaks. Despite the downward nature in calling out many male preconceptions in Get On Me that often emerging in internet exchanges the deliver is upbeat. The feel of the music is effectively a contemporary take on that more acoustic country that was prevalent in the 40s and 50s. It actually sounds quite refreshing in this era of male-dominated turbo country, definitely more California than Nashville or Texas. The sole cover is the Hazel Dickens-written " Don’t Put Her Down You Helped Put Her There which uses Powell’s accordion as a prime part of the instrumentation. It also relates to Nolan’s strong feminist attitude and involvement, which remains with her, along with other commitments important to her sense of justice.
The album finishes its outing with Bad For You, wherein she expresses a sense of what loneliness and often loss can come to be a way of looking at what life’s cards have dealt you. She may feel that she is the one who might be bad, but all too often, it is the other way around. This is Nolan’s debut full album. She produced it alongside Heather Ann Lomax and Jason Hiller (who also engineered it) in Electrosound Studios in L.A. Doc Brown (guitar and steel), Doug Organ (piano), Ryan Posner (double bass), with Jim Doyle and Kevin Brown (drums and percussion) all played their part as did the various singers who also added their vocals.
Other than the cover songs and the co-write, the songs are all written by Nolan. She has gone back in some ways to come forward in terms of her chosen sound, but she has incorporated all the good and bad things that have happened along the way, as well as all the different locations she has lived in, into her songwriting, which is the main attraction here. With an EP behind her, she now has the freedom to explore herself going forward and, hopefully, in the time-honoured way that California country has always been such a rewarding route.
Stephen Rapid
Sparkle Carcass Maraschino Chevy Self Release
This is the second release from the Chicago based honky-tonk four piece. The band is led by singer guitarist Cody Palmer with his wife vocalist Reilly Downes, Justin Frederick on bass and drummer Aaron Vincel. Also involved here are Jeff Lyman on steel and lead guitar, Julie Nichols on organ and on one track Palmer’s mother Tammie Messick adds piano - so something of a family affair. Palmer also produced this straight down the line set of songs suitable for the local bar and honk tonk but also making an album that is enjoyable in the recorded format as well.
There are eight tracks that include a cover of the late, great honky tonk icon Gary Stewart’s Single Again. This is sung with conviction by the husband and wife
with an uptempo hardfloor feel that does the song some justice. From then on its is a solid run through of the other seven tracks, that all feel that they’re going to the right places. The songs are slices of life and leisure, from the clear message of Sippin’ On A Cool One through to the appeal for a relationship to carry on through all that might occur, good and bad, in Not Ever, as in 'not now, not ever’. Trying to drink some memories away, a honky tonk staple, is summed up in New Year No You. The title track is the real gem here, a story of a baptist preacher father and the wish to own the car of the title, Maraschino Chevy. It has a solid beat, some nice steel and guitar interplay, and shows the band off at its best. Following closely behind is the harmony laden Rainy Day Head, “been livin’ on water and bread” doesn’t sound too promising a lifestyle but the song itself is. Caldwell County has some nice piano to give it that extra texture, contributing to the build up to a strong finish.
I have some doubts that the band name actually best describes what they do, which, on this evidence, is something they do well. This may not seem, on the surface, to be that different from a number of other local area bands, but that is not to downplay that it is a purposeful and well played bunch of songs from a band that sound like they would be well received in a small bar setting. Palmer is a convincing singer and songwriter with songs that deal with life on the road, love in less than easy times, and facing life in Chicago in the wake of the pandemic and other problems. This though is also balanced with humour and hubris, indicating that although this is their second album, there is a lot more music in them to come as the rev up and move on down the highway.
Stephen Rapid
Bill Scorzari Sidereal Days Self Release
Those acquainted with Scorzari’s previous work will be familiar with his grizzled and raspy, gravel hewn voice, which is always placed above a well thought out and pleasing set of arrangements that are cinematic in outlook. Scorzari’s often poetic lyrics deal with acute observations from a personal perspective, that are in context both often painful but also true-to-life affirmations of the positive. The songs here appear, from the credits, to have been written over a period from 1995 to 2016, but ones that Scorzari thought their time had come and he set about recording them from 2020 onwards, initially recording his contributions in his home studio in New York. Later, further embellishments were recorded in studios in Nashville. For the uninitiated perhaps think of Sam Baker (though that might not really help too much for those who are equally unaware of the latter’s work), or perhaps consider a touch of Leonard Cohen at times, a not so melodic voice placed against a detailed and revealing set of arrangements.
A dozen musicians or so have contributed alongside Scorzari’s multi-instrumentalist input, and that includes drummer and percussionist Neilson Hubbard who handled the production duties with Scorzari. The album opener All This Time incorporates a string section and it balances that distinctive semi-spoken vocal with a subtle pedal steel. Suffice it to say that throughout the album these characterisations are apparent in the consistent level of music contributions. Some may take issue with Scorzari’s vocal delivery, it is true. yet it is the element in these songs that is their humanity and focus. It’s also true that on Endgame he pushes his delivery and sings it with some gusto.
The ten featured songs vary in length from under two and a half minutes to over eight minutes, and while they are all lyrical interesting it is sometimes hard to catch their full meaning and insight devoid (on a review copy) of the lyric sheet. These however are helpfully available with the commercial release. Lyrics are an important part of Scorzari’s music, but it is the overall combination of lyric, voice and musical accompaniment that creates his vision and attraction for the listener. Each of the songs has an individual story to impart, such as And Carries Me Away where the instrumentation is suggestive of travel, particularly trains. By contrast, in Can’t Break This Fall the subject is more self-realised and about the notion of falling in love. This consideration of relationships and their many and varied interpretations is also there in Borrowed Hearts. Scorzari is generally not one to write songs of simple brevity but he does,on occasion, as in From Your Heart. Less than two and a half minutes in length, this country styled song, which still uses his full set of assembled players, is as convincing as many of the those that take their time in revealing their depth.
As with all reviews the real themes and meanings of the lyrics are Scorzari’s, my considerations are simply my take on them - which is perhaps not a bad thing as it allows the listener to play their part. It is another prodigious release that will find its fans - both old and new - and demonstrates that Scorzari is among a group of artists who have produced lasting work and will continue to do so while staying well away from the fickle mainstream spotlight. Explaining his choice of title, Scorzari writes “I liked the concept of a pure descriptor of the moment when something returns to where it had previously been, without consideration of how it was otherwise moving.” A second volume of these reworking and reimaginings of earlier material will be available in early 2026. If you enjoyed this volume, then you will await the next with some anticipation.
Stephen Rapid
Caroline Spence Heart Go Wild Self Release
Album number six in a run that has produced some enthralling music from this gifted artist. This new offering is absolutely beautiful, with production qualities that expand into hushed soundscapes in the delivery of these twelve songs. The listening experience is both intimate and spectral and Caroline Spence has a lovely voice, residing in the high register, at once inviting and endearing in the meaningful words and honeyed vocals.
Leading off with the superb Confront It, a song of self-analysis and self- doubt, which wrestles with gaining meaning from the vulnerability experienced in negotiating life ‘It never left, You carry it with you, It walks around keeping the score.’ Interestingly, in a departure from her more introspective songs, Soft Animal is an example of the new approach, mixing it up with the sound almost bordering on a rock groove, and a look at breaking free from the norms ‘Do you know how hard it is these days, To take a step against the grain.’
The lovely melody that runs through Effortless belies the message of striking out against expected behaviour ‘It’s not right yet, But I know that I’m doing nothing wrong, Not changing my tune, Just because they haven’t played my song.’ Perhaps a reaction to her time spent with Rounder Records and their expectation for an artist to fit into a corporate box. She has since severed her links with the record label and followed her aspirations toward a different vision.
Why the Tree Loves the Ax is trying to recapture something that has been forfeited; perhaps in a relationship, or with the loss of innocence – ‘Sometimes we want something, That is good for nothing, Just because we miss wanting, Something all the time.’ Again, the words are so carefully sculpted and portray deep emotion in such a graceful way. Where the Time Goes is just beautiful, a love song with time suspended ‘Oh I’m finding myself, Lost in the moment, Don’t know where the sun is, But every hour is golden now.’ The use of synthesizer and programming is a new departure in stretching out the sound palette and it works superbly well.
Another song that revels in wedded bliss is The Sound Of You and the gorgeous tone of Caroline’s vocal against a soft melody of piano and pedal steel ‘Oh a wordless melody, Oh the only thing I need.’ Caroline is now a young mother and the new experience of parenthood informs Dried Flowers, Old Habits with the changes in her daily living perhaps reflected in a new form of identity ‘Why am I this way, Waiting on the perfect way to change, A sure-fire way to let your colours fade.’
The title track Heart Go Wild is a search for new inspiration to appear ‘I heard before, That you want what you can’t have, But I want it all, Never wanted anything so bad.’ Fun At Parties is a pure joy, and as close to a commercial sound that Caroline has come to, the rhythm creating an earworm, along with the lyric ‘All I wanna do is dance, And be carefree, but I just can’t – I wanna be, but I’m not gonna be, fun at parties.’
Vulnerability in love is beautifully captured on Heart Like A Mirror and the sweet surrender to honesty in communication ‘All my life I’ve only ever dreamed, I’d hold someone this close to me, All this time I thought I knew myself, But you’ve reflected someone else that I’ve tried not to be, Love is daring to be seen.’ The message on Leaving Now is the need to rediscover what has been lost, perhaps stifled creativity? The temptation is to reference her label split again with the artist fighting against being pigeon holed ‘It was noise, now it’s music. My saving grace, you called it useless, I went above, I went beyond, To change your mind ‘till I got lost.’
A highlight is the final song Where the Light Gets Through and it is a dedication to a lost friend with a reflection on missing their presence ‘But it still feels empty, This place you left behind, Still everything about it, Brings you to my mind.’ No question, Caroline Spence has delivered something very special here, and without doubt one of my favourite albums of 2025.
Paul McGee
Ed Dupas Codename California Black Bear
“Go West, young man” is an oft-used phrase when it comes to striking out for change and new horizons. In the case of Ed Dupas it was something of a reunion to return to the state of California where he had originally been conceived. His family had settled in Texas but there was always an emotional tug pulling Ed back to the hills of the Golden State.
The journey undertaken was a pilgrimage of sorts from his home in Ann Arbour, Michigan to a small residence in Laurel Canyon. Following the death of his father in 2019, Dupas hit a creative wall and in dealing with the grief encountered in the loss of a parent, he then found himself caught up in two years of forced seclusion as a consequence of the Covid pandemic. So, a time to take stock and to reflect upon the journey taken, and the road that stretches out ahead.
The opening song, and album title, is Codename California and it’s fair to say that the place he had longed to revisit was long since disappeared. This is evidenced in the lyric to Barbed Wire Cross on the reflection “The sun’s going down on better days, So we’re sending our prayers from far away, Through the twisted streets of broken glass, To the folks sleeping underneath the overpass.” The separation between the haves and the have-not’s just keeps getting bigger and wider each year.
Another consequence of time and the Covid experience is the sense of isolation that is now palpable in the eyes of lost souls wandering around our cities, all looking for connection. With the song Box Of Lonely Men Dupas captures this cry for help perfectly in his observation of a local bar ‘When the whiskey flows like wine, You get everybody feeling fine, Till it’s closing time,’ and the patrons leave to return to their solitary routines. The need to get lost for a period during his grief is mirrored in Ready To Be Found and the admission ‘I’ve been paying the bills in the Hollywood Hills for a while, Living without care as the world out there runs wild, Yeah, I had to turn off the news just to find my smile.’
There are relationship songs that profess the love shared between two spirits bound in time and both Queen Of Hearts and My Only One give hope for the future that is not necessarily found in The Great Shutdown which captures the distance found between us politically when ‘Red or blue is the only thing to choose.’ Elsewhere, The Medicine is a song about addiction and the need to try and cope from day to day ‘I’ve been trying for so long to pick myself up off the ground, It’s probably the medicine that’s been bringing me down.’ When you get dealt your cards, it’s not always possible to play a strong hand.
Perhaps the philosophy expressed in Holy Land is all we can cling to ‘And walk the path of peace, my son, like a river flows, Try to be a North Star to the world when the cold winds blow,’ and the song emerged from a chance encounter at a truck stop with a man of God. This is the first album in six years and Ed Dupas sounds really authentic in his vocal delivery and heartfelt words. Think Steve Earle as a signpost to this new direction and sound that Dupas has shaped.
The final song is Angel and it seems to channel the loss of a loved one, perhaps his father, in the sentiment that we are never alone and someone, once loved, lives on in our hearts ‘When I was a child, You’d softly smile, Into my dreams, Once in a while.’ Ed Dupas has bridged the gap between finding himself born again and that sense of being lost which existed. The musicians are all trusted friends from earlier albums with Michael Crittenden co-producing, in addition to playing various instruments.
Drew Holland on pedal steel, lap steel and dobro adds plenty of great moments in his playing and Tony Pace also appears on lap steel and dobro. The rhythm section of Rob Avsharian on drums and both James Connors and James Simonson on bass is quietly assured and vocal contributions from Drew Nelson, Chip Habitz and Caroline Barlow are full of colour. Ed Dupas takes all lead vocals, writes all the songs and plays acoustic and electric guitars with a knowing ease. Impressive on many fronts, a great sounding band record and one that comes with much to offer.
Paul McGee
Holly Carter Leave Your Mark Self Release
Holly Carter is a singer-songwriter and multi-award-winning instrumentalist who has established a reputation as one of Bristol’s leading fingerstyle guitarists and as one of the UK’s only professional female pedal steel players. So informs her website upon an initial visit and this album is her full-length debut.
The album was recorded at Middle Farm Studios in Devon and apart from the obvious skills of Carter, the other musicians are Joe Wilkins (guitars), John Parker (double bass), and Matt Brown (drums, percussion). The songs were recorded live in the studio with Peter Miles in the producers chair providing an organic sound to capture the interplay between the musicians.
The ensemble playing is superb and Holly sings in a voice that is somewhat reminiscent of Natalie Merchant in its restrained quality and unhurried tone. The ten songs display a keen sense of place and time, from the cover of Joe Hill’s Where the Fraser River Flows seeking union rights for workers, to the tribute to activist Stetson Kennedy who successfully exposed the Ku Klux Klan’s racist activities in the 1960s.
The opening song What You See concerns our splintered society and the inclination to only see one side of any opinion ‘Every different kind of lens makes a different kind of sense.’ The instrumental Morewen is timeless in its beauty, capturing the purity of acoustic instruments, gentle percussion and double bass lines that echo the great playing of Danny Thompson at his intuitive best. The atmosphere is reminiscent of a lazy country bike ride on a summers day. The jazzier flow of He’s A Man is something of a jaunty ride that exposes the failings of the powerful and blinkered powermongers that eat up so much of our shared oxygen. There is an atmosphere to Follow Your Lead that suggests an insecurity in decision making, where perhaps an easy route taken is better than making waves, whereas the slow blues of Idle Eyes is a sultry swing through the choice of going with the flow of life.
Out To Sea is a standout track with atmospheric pedal steel wrapping a melody that conjures up earth and sky on a horizon that stretches into the distance. This is a fine album with superbly executed songs, understated and sonorous in the delivery. Worthy of your attention.
Paul McGee