by Josh Hurst

Amythyst Kiah’s breakthrough autobiographical album dwells in the darkness without getting lost in the void. If you know Amythyst Kiah, it’s probably through her involvement with Our Native Daughters, the Rhiannon Giddens-led all-star troupe that reasserted the centrality of Black women to the history…

Ashley Monroe fully commits to a new mood on Rosegold, but the lightweight affair is stripped of much depth or character. Ever since Like a Rose, the 2013 album that was for all intents and purposes her debut, Ashley Monroe has been all but…

The Marfa Tapes finds the three old-hats of country riding each other’s waves to melancholy and joyous heights. Toward the end of The Marfa Tapes, you’ll hear Miranda Lambert sing “Tin Man,” a signature song from her 2016 masterpiece The Weight of These Wings. She’s…

In 2008, the Drive-by Truckers weren’t exactly a band on the ropes — actually, they were on a winning streak that no other contemporary American band could touch — but they were certainly a band with something to prove. For one thing, they were…

Giddens and Turrisi’s latest collab is an intimate, interior record that beautifully blurs its sonic lines. Rhiannon Giddens may not be the only musician who recorded an album during lockdown, but she may be one of the best-suited for such a project. For one…

Taylor’s Version is an unnecessary work, but one that remains fascinating in the way an older, more experienced Swift slightly reshapes these songs of innocence. “I knew everything when I was young,” sang Taylor Swift on folklore, her magnificently mopey Grammy winner from 2020. Twelve…

The Moon and Stars is a masterful, singular effort and career apogee for Valerie June. As Miles Davis once said, “Sometimes it takes you a long time to sound like yourself.” This little proverb has become familiar almost to the point of cliché, but…

Promises is a masterwork of collaboration, a suite that both teaches and bestows patience, tranquility, and openness. Promises — a ravishing collaboration between Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders, and the London Symphony Orchestra — opens with a wisp: A bright smattering of notes played on…

Carnage is both a progression and double-back for Cave and Ellis, re-embracing some of their punk and sleaze of their past while still offering delicate, impressionistic texture. Nick Cave has never been one to coddle. His music demands that listeners sit for a while with…

While Willie Nelson boasts a pretty high floor and That’s Life is indeed a pleasant enough listen, it’s the also the songwriter’s least essential album in the past decade. With That’s Life, Willie Nelson finds himself two albums deep into a cycle of Frank Sinatra…