WEEKEND WAYBACK MACHINE"Tenderness"from the album There Goes Rhymin' Simon1973iTunesRetaining the buoyant musical feel of Paul Simon, but employing a more produced sound, There Goes Rhymin' Simon found Paul Simon writing and performing with assurance and venturing into soulful and R&B-oriented music. Simon returned...

One of the most impressive things about Martin Simpson’s Indian summer is his willingness to keep ringing the changes and refuse to settle for a winning formula. Decorated with awards for his previous two albums, Prodigal Son and True Stories â€" both of which broke new ground...

Being a product of the age it was written, Slow Club's 2009 debut, Yeah So, dealt with the all too familiar space between adolescence and the oncoming storm of adulthood. A boy-girl duo who played a flower-adorned chair live, they were the polar opposite of what was coming...

Bob Dylan had barely put miles on his 23rd year when he wrote My Back Pages, his gleeful kiss-off to finger-wagging folk turning on his political idealism, its key lines: "But I was so much older then / I'm younger than that now". Laura Marling is only 21...

As soon as 'Caught In The Fires' kicked in on Lee Mitchell's "Whisky" EP, my initial reaction was: 'well, this guy is going to benefit from the Mumford wave if he picks his surfboard up quick enough'. It was the instant hit of folky warmth and celtic-tinged vocals (he's allowed...

The nicely designed CD art and card cover to this promo shortly give way to bitter disappointment as you are confronted with something that sounds like a nightmarish version of Alphabeat and the Scissor Sisters in a blender; the horribly chirpy tune grates, the high pitched vocal delivery is nasal...

You could be forgiven for missing Fionn Regan’s third long-player in the release schedules. Unlike his previous set, 2010’s The Shadow of an Empire, this arrives with relatively little fanfare, a result of the Bray-born singer’s retreat from the mainstream five years on from his Mercury-nominated debut,

Jim's ability to create memorable and catchy tunes has transferred easily to this pared down folksy setting and vocally his slightly husky tone is perfect; when he occasionally strays into that louder register and it breaks, you can feel those shivers, just lovely. This album is full of emotional depth...

Released in January 1974, Joni Mitchell’s sixth album was her bridge of sighs between folk-rock singer-songwriter and neo-jazz experimentalist. After the successes of Blue and For the Roses, she spent most of 73 crafting it; yet for all the exquisite musicality of her band (guests included Crosby...

Hard-Fi have dawdled since 2007’s Once Upon a Time in the West, with its slated ‘No Cover Art’ sleeve overshadowing the fact it reached number one. But they return to stall the supposed demise of rock, showing that, despite Liam’s delusions, the state of the genre’s health does...