This is a remarkable and beautiful album, charming, moving, heartfelt and absolutely of the moment. Kick back and relax, let the wild world into your eyes, your voice, your heart. You are in safe hands here. Part praise, part blessing,…
Akin to her Appalachian contemporaries, folkie Heather Sarona sews her roots from the mountainside. The singer-songwriter grew up surrounded by folk and bluegrass music in the Uwharrie Mountains of North Carolina. Americana runs intrinsically through her veins, informing her warm, rootsy songwriting and multi-instrumentalist abilities—Sarona plays guitar in a way that recalls Saratoga greats, plus banjo and uke. Her debut LP, Head Above Water, invokes all of these elements into a cozy, inhabitable folk soundscape that recalls the likes of Gillian Welch and Watchhouse.
Everything changes over time. That’s certainly true for Sea Wolf’s Through a Dark Wood. Some of the pain has passed and now songs that didn’t make sense when the album was released in March of 2020 resonate differently. Eighteen months have…
Capturing magic in a bottle is hard, doing it twice is almost impossible. But that’s what Robert Plant and Alison Krauss have done with Raise the Roof. The first notes of ‘Quattro (World Drifts In)’ suggest that while it has taken…
Devin Hoff first heard Anne Briggs’ music about ten years ago, and that moment changed his life, leading him to spend thousands of hours listening to Briggs and eventually recording Voices from the Empty Moor (Songs of Anne Briggs). Striking a chord…
The Ghibertins carry the torch for clap-along, stomp-along folk-rock well on their latest. You wouldn’t be remiss for recalling the indie outfit’s commercial brothers and sisters with the soaring chorus and driving beat of ‘Ropes & Kites’.