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| Photo - Jessina Leonard |
The oilfield town where A.S. Wilson grew up, south of New Orleans, is disappearing. Not as metaphor — as fact. The land is sinking, the coastline receding, and the petrochemical industry that built its economy is still there, rusting into the swamp it helped poison. Wilson has built a life elsewhere; he's been away long enough to know he won't watch it go. But when he learned he was going to be a father, his relationship to home suddenly felt different: its erosion was more pressing, his separation from it more permanent, and altogether more tender than he expected.
Nowhere Songs, Wilson's second full-length fronting the Providence, RI rock outfit Convinced Friend, grew from that urgency. The record took shape around a literal due date — the room that served as Wilson’s home studio was about to become a nursery — and he treated the deadline with workmanlike seriousness. Where Convinced Friend’s self-titled debut found him making sense of faith and commitment, Wilson’s songwriting on Nowhere Songs reaches back further, to Houma, Louisiana, concerning itself with intimate portraits of the people Wilson grew up among. Wilson writes about them in first and second person — not gawking, but alongside, within. He was there. He left. He's not quite sure he earned the distinction.
“In some ways, I feel like I somehow got... I don’t want to say spared, that feels too strong, but – I got out and other people didn’t, and I don’t exactly know why,” says Wilson, noting that he’s one of two people from his graduating class to leave Louisiana – the other being a linebacker for Florida State.
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| Photo - Karen Santos |
Acclaimed singer-songwriter Miko Marks returns this weekend with “Death Rolls Like Thunder,” the lead single from her forthcoming album, Hell Or High Water, which is due out October 30 via Redtone Records. On Hell Or High Water, Miko leans further into her blues influences, drawing on the country, gospel, soul, and rock n’ roll traditions that have long shaped her music. Produced by and co-written with longtime collaborator Justin Phipps, the album emerged from a period of massive personal change, including the amicable end of her 29-year marriage and the beginning of her journey with sobriety. “These songs acknowledge the darkness without surrendering to it,” she says.
That struggle between darkness and hope takes a dramatic turn on lead single “Death Rolls Like Thunder,” which uses the Battle of Little Bighorn, also known as Custer’s Last Stand, as its setting. The devil rides in on a pale horse, his army following, as death and destruction appear inevitable before the tables turn and the riders who have come to conquer are defeated. For Miko, the battle represents the power of a people defending their land and their right to remain, and serves as a reminder of those throughout history who have found ways to hold on, resist, and rebuild.
Hell Or High Water is Miko’s first new studio album since 2022’s acclaimed Feel Like Going Home, which broke into the Top 10 on the Americana charts and led to her Grand Ole Opry debut. She’s been super busy since then, releasing a deluxe version of the album in 2024, returning to the Opry multiple times, and appearing at festivals like Stagecoach, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, MerleFest, Ottawa Bluesfest, and more.
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Wigan/Manchester indie quartet Montello continue to make their mark with the new single, ‘Eleanor (When Will You Learn)’, showcasing yet another example of their signature melancholy that dances rather than mopes.
Proving they know how to make heartache move, the track balances its Vaccines and early Arctic Monkeys-esque indie credentials whilst drawing on elements of The Smiths, The Stone Roses and Oasis. Produced by Luke Owens (of fast-rising Manchester band Bank Holiday), the single pairs its jangling guitar lines, with a waltzing drum beat with anthemic vocal melodies to create a track which brings emotional sincerity and bittersweet lyrical honesty whilst retaining a purposeful indie accessibility.
"‘Eleanor (When Will You Learn)’ is a song that describes the turmoil of a dysfunctional relationship with someone too concerned with themselves to care.” the band explain. “The banging-your-head-against-the-wall chic the lyrics embody result in a song that many of our audience can relate to, from the sarcastic ‘You know I love you's' to the bargaining of the titular question ‘When will you learn?’ - all neatly wrapped up in the instrumentation of a nostalgic noughties indie rock tune."
Since the release of their debut EP which kickstarted a rapid rise for the Manchester outfit Montello have toured across the UK, playing festivals including Truck Festival and the Isle Of Wight Festival whilst also earning support from tastemakers including Dork, Earmilk, Gigslutz, Notion, Ones To Watch, and Radio X (John Kennedy). Their growing momentum has seen them perform at iconic venues including O2 Ritz and Gorilla, before also headlining and selling out Manchester's Deaf Institute.
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Bitw is the solo project of Welsh musician Gruff ab Arwel. A committed DIY artist, he has built a career of sorts on his own terms, creating lo-fi art pop (not his description) that takes itself seriously without taking himself too seriously. Now in his mid-thirties, Gruff has made the seamless transition from failing musician to failed musician, and is finally enjoying the freedom that comes with having nothing left to prove.
His latest album, Gaddo Glaw, is his most homemade and cost-effective work yet; a record made almost entirely alone with a borrowed Portastudio and a steady supply of bad news. The songs find Gruff generally giving up on hope and finding peace instead through accepting our impending doom. His first entirely Welsh-language release, Gaddo Glaw confronts geopolitical conflict, the climate crisis and the general feeling that things are falling apart, all delivered in easy-to-digest pop song form. Bleak in subject matter yet full of warmth, the album stops short of finding a beacon of hope, but nevertheless holds on for dear life to love as one of the best things full stop.
Gaddo Glaw (out this weekend on digital platforms), the first single and title track from Bitw’s forthcoming album, is an upbeat introduction to its bleak worldview. The song's foreboding message bottles the album's themes and mood in a neat three-and-a-half-minute capsule, its stuttering rhythms never settling and eerie lifeless choir accompanying Gruff's almost resigned tone. The single is backed by Dan Ddylanwad, an hour-long track that is sure to test the patience of even the most hardened Bitw fans.
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| Photo - Alex Berger |
Revered Nashville-based singer/songwriter/producer Mary Bragg has released her new single “Hi-Fi.” The track is the latest to release off her forthcoming album Secrets to Strangers, produced by Grammy Award-winner John Paul White and lauded producer/engineer/keyboardist Ben Tanner, due out October 16th through Single Lock Records via Secretly Distribution. One of the more rock-tinged tracks on the album, the radio-ready “Hi-Fi” leans into its modern pop groove, while wrestling with uncompromising radical honesty.
"In numbing ourselves, trying to outrun our own truths, we romanticize the past in avoidance of the present,” stated Bragg. “This song is about considering the other option, where facing your own realities - including the brutal, ugly ones - make you a better person for it. There’s no drowning out the fact that we all have room for improvement as human beings, and sometimes I think just opening your eyes and ears to that can lead to some beautiful healing. It certainly has for me.”
“Hi-Fi” follows the release of “What Do I Do” (feat. John Paul White) along with an official video. Upon its release, Rolling Stone named it a Song You Need To Know, while Billboard added it to their New Music Friday Guide, along with highlights by No Depression and The Bluegrass Situation who called it "a passionate, soulful Americana song that’s existential, yes, but also aspirational. The production is a lovely vehicle for Bragg’s poetic and insightful lyric-smithing."
Every great song is essentially a secret told to a stranger. And when the truth is clear, the stranger recognizes themselves in it. Whether those conversations happen from the stage, in therapy, or between strangers at an airport bar, they’re all attempts to bridge the distance between people. With her sixth full-length album, Bragg does just that, as she delivers a collection of deeply personal stories offered to the outside world.
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| Photo - Emma Ledgerwood |
Mama’s Broke, the Nova Scotian duo of Amy Lou Keeler and Lisa Maria, today release Reunion, via Free Dirt Records and Forward Music Group. Building on their JUNO-nominated album Narrow Line (2022), Reunion reflects a world coming apart in plain sight, tracing fractured communities, the erosion of shared ground, and the growing awareness that the systems we were taught to trust no longer hold or deliver the promises they were meant to keep. The songs don’t preach or prescribe; they reflect, holding up a mirror and leaving space for something else to take shape.
Mama’s Broke have forged a style carried across landscapes rather than tied to one. For over a decade, the pair have been in near-constant motion, bringing their folk-without-borders approach to small clubs, DIY spaces, and everywhere in between. This tradition is continued with their biggest tour yet which will see them play across Canada and the US. Speaking on the upcoming dates the pair explain, “This album is named Reunion because it’s so much about coming together and galvanising against the forces that attempt to keep us isolated and afraid. This album is meant to be experienced in a room of people, not on the internet.”
Reunion follows their JUNO-nominated album Narrow Line (2022), which saw NPR Music extend an invite to perform on the legendary NPR Tiny Desk. The album was recorded just outside Nashville in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, and features subtle contributions from bassist Paul Kowert (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings) and others, adding depth without pulling focus from the record’s acoustic core.
At its heart, Mama’s Broke remains what it has always been: two voices, intertwined, both fragile and enduring. Reunion asks what it means to make something that lasts: not a place you’re from, or even a place you return to, but what you make together, and how long it lasts, if you tend to it.
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