With the release of their first record in five years, Neon Blue Bird, Ollabelle remind us just how stirring the right combination of vocal harmonies can be. Led by Amy Helm, Levon’s daughter, and Jimi Zhivago, this New York-based roots outfit revels in tweaking traditional tunes such as Stephen Foster’s...

It’s been a good year for African desert rock. In April, young Tuareg bruisers Tamikrest released their second (and best) album, Toumastin, and now the heavyweight champs Tinariwen are back to deliver a TKO in the form of Tissali, their fifth long-player. The band formed from members...

When Ry Cooder recorded his first two albums, collections of songs by the likes of Lead Belly and Woody Guthrie that evoked the desperate times of the Great Depression, he could scarcely have imagined that 40 years later he’d be singing of the same old problems, but...

Halla-frickin'-lujah! The most eagerly anticipated blues release of the year is here. Hot on the heels of sweat-drenched debut single 'Nancy Lee' comes "The Bomb Shelter Sessions". They may only have been around for a year, but these are no mere kids. Vintage Trouble, blues-culture soaked right down to their...

Astute fans know that to attend a Levon Helm rambleâ€"especially one of his intimate rambles at his barn in Upstate New Yorkâ€"is to bare witness to a legend of American music. This live collectionâ€"a CD and a DVD sold separatelyâ€"is from a 2008 ramble at one of America’s finest auditoriums...

In the fifth decade of her career, and with a quiet regularity unusual for her species of kitsch megastar, Dolly Parton continues to make new records (Better Day is her sixth since the turn of the century). While she clearly believes that she got where she is through...

It may or may not be a coincidence that songs grappling with a working musician’s fearsâ€"receding youth while stardom doesn’t seem to get any closer (see “Yes You Are” and “Rock N Roll”)â€"appear on an album that’s also Grayson Capps’ most polished to date. Either way, the addition of organ...

We know what to expect from She Keeps Bees: Jessica Larrabee’s salt-and-spit vocal, wailing into a sultry exhaustion as drummer (and beau) Andy LaPlant diligently hammers the skins to add a thumping distinction to the fizzing amp crackle.

It was this raw dynamic which made debut album, Nests, stomp your...

It’s a long time since Gomez won the Mercury Music Prize. Thirteen years, to be precise, since they beat The Verve, Massive Attack and Pulp to the award back in 1998. And after one spin of this, their seventh studio album, you’ll think it was even...

In 2010 Derek Trucks decided to suspend his self-titled group and wife Susan Tedeschi tabled her own touring band, so that the pair could start anew with a fresh, hand-picked collective. As the eleven figures who appear on the cover of Revelator can attest, they’ve opted to assemble a big...