Laura Marling: Song for Our Daughter review – better than ever

Laura Marling’s seventh album is addressed to an imaginary daughter: it provides succour, perspective and more than a few warnings. “Sometimes the hardest thing to learn is what you get from what you lose,” she muses on Blow by Blow. … Continue reading →

James Elkington: Ever-Roving Eye review – a slow-burn delight

(Paradise of Bachelors)

Laura Marling: Song for Our Daughter review – the intimate album we need

Written to an imaginary child about ‘what it is to be a woman in this society’, the singer’s seventh album is alternately intimate, sneering and sad, and lavished with gorgeous melodies

Bob Dylan: Murder Most Foul review – a dark, dense ballad for the end times

Dylan’s first new song in eight years is a fascinating portrait of his obsession with JFK’s assassination, rich with pop cultural detail and apocalyptic dread

Wu Fei and Abigail Washburn: Wu Fei and Abigail Washburn review – transcendent and blissful

The two musicians seamlessly merge folk traditions from China and the US, on an album deserving mainstream recognition

Georgia Ruth: Mai review – lush Welsh pastorals and other odes to spring

(Bubblewrap Collective)

Big Thief review – brawny folk-rockers beguile the big leagues

The New York group play their biggest-ever gig, and captivate thousands with their unshowy, confidently beautiful songcraft

Myrkur: Folkesange review – Danish black metaller makes dense, intense folk

Amalie Bruun goes back to her roots in these new versions of Scandinavian traditional songs, played on mandolas, lyres and a nyckelharpa

Seth Lakeman: A Pilgrim’s Tale review – all aboard the Mayflower

Following in the wake of the Pilgrim fathers, the English folk star sees things from both sides of the Atlantic

Lisa O’Neill review – indelible portraits from outstanding folk star

From unemployed dockers to swooning lovers, O’Neill has a way of getting the audience straight into her characters’ heads

Sam Lee: Old Wow review – a dazzling fusion of nature and song

Lee pursues his twin passions on this fine third album

Sam Lee: Old Wow review – Britain’s nature crisis in gnarly song

Lee’s twee-free third album, produced by Bernard Butler and featuring Liz Fraser, is a stark reminder of this country’s environmental concerns

Grit Orchestra/Celtic Connections review – filmic fusion from an 80-strong band

Greg Lawson’s boisterous ensemble celebrate freedom and the Declaration of Arbroath while US duo Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn add festive moonshine

Citizen Bravo, Raymond MacDonald and Friends: Return to Y’Hup: The World of Ivor Cutler review – charming tribute to a national treasure

(Chemikal Underground)

Joan Shelley: Like the River Loves the Sea review – magnificent love-and-loss songs

Shelley’s fifth album was recorded in Iceland and her music seems more timeless, steely, sad and resolute than ever