Our Top Six Albums November 2024
Top Six Album Releases
November 2024
Our Top Six Albums November 2024
By Rob Dickens
Amythyst Kiah
Still + Bright
Rounder Records
25 October 2024
This release follows Amythyst Kiah‘s 2021 collection Wary + Strange which contained themes of alienation and anguish including the tragic death of her mother when Kiah was just seventeen (read our review). The new album title indicates a more optimistic space for Kiah and, indeed as it turns out, so do the contents.
Still + Bright, her third album, was produced by Butch Walker (and recorded at his Nashville studio) and there’s a luscious and full sound, sometimes frizzy, metallic rhythms and prominent banjo and pedal steel ornamentation. Lyrically there are gleaming references to Eastern spirituality and nature.
Kiah is also bolder here, letting herself rely more on others, featuring collaborations with S.G. Goodman, Billy Strings and Avi Kaplan, as well as working with co-writers Tim Armstrong, Sadler Vaden and Sean McConnell.
Still + Bright has lofty aims and fully meets them.
Chuck Prophet
Wake The Dead
Yep Roc Records
25 October 2024
Chuck Prophet has an uncommon ability to deliver nuanced vocals over a streamlined set of lyrics with a John Prine-esque quirkiness – plenty of musical earworms. Wake The Dead is this San Franciscan legend’s first album since his recovery from stage four lymphoma and it’s another reason for rejoicing.
His recovery saw him fascinated with Cumbian music, listening intently to it, jamming and then gigging with ¿Qiensave?, a band of brothers from a farming community and finally recording this album with that band and his regular outfit The Mission Express.
It’s been around forty years since the legendary indie rock outfit Green On Red first took the stage. Prophet is still making superior music and his positive health news is a boon for us all. Enjoy this glorious foot-tapping, dancing outing from one of the best.
Haley Heynderickx
Seed Of A Seed
Mama Bird Recording Co
1 November 2024
Haley Heynderickx‘s debut I Need to Start the Garden was a stunner (check out our review), capturing her soaring voice with seemingly unlimited range, and intricate and inimitable finger-picking. Seed Of A Seed also features those golden attributes and some profound self-reflection over a series of songs with unpredictable structure and progression.
The lush wonderment of forests and flowers, the experience of daydreams and the importance of friendships are presented in a positive beam of light. Heynderickx started working with a “core jazz boy band” perfectly suited to her expressions of artistic freedom and then added electric guitar and cello to further accentuate the melodies.
Seed of a Seed is another brilliant and bold statement – listen to it in your garden.
(The only negative I have is that I struggle to spell her name correctly!)
Jack Nolan
Songs For Hemingway
Independent
11 October 2024
Sydney’s Jack Nolan has been performing since the mid-1990s and has a CV of six solo albums and frontman of The Kelly Gang.
“When I was looking for an album name I felt obligated to Ernest Hemingway, so I dedicated all the songs to his memory.”
Written in 2023, Songs for Hemingway is an all-acoustic outing where Nolan’s alternative guitar tunings melodiously fuse with sidekick Justin Weaver‘s mandolin, slide guitar and banjo. The highlight track I’ve chosen “Tofino” (clip below) is a prime archetype of what you will find on the album – Nolan’s crisp vocals, sturdy melodies and profound prose.
Via Chris Familton Publicity
Jordie Lane
Tropical Depression
Blood Thinner Records/ABC Music
16 August 2024
I must admit that I got off on the wrong foot with Jordie Lane‘s latest. Having seen a couple of clips, I got the impression that the songs were a little wacky and lacked gravitas. After revisiting his latest release recently, I realised how wrong I was.
Tropical Depression is an exquisite package, one of the most sonically appealing albums of the year. The themes (climate, mental health and human denial) are unrelenting and the lyrics are astute and poignant. Here are a couple of examples:
‘You ain’t no gun-slinger baby, You’re a hipster eating gravy off a biscuit in a Nashville house, You ain’t no 4-leaf clover, You’re a wannabe drover, making jokes on your way down south.’ – “Biscuit House”
‘My country was burnin’, but the world kept on churning, What new catastrophe’s on special tonight?‘ – “The Changing Weather”.
The album was recorded in Nashville with Grammy-nominated producer, engineer and instrumentalist Jon Estes.
Via Jo Corbett Publicity
Josh Ritter
Heaven, Or Someplace As Nice
Pytheas Recordings/Thirty Tigers
25 October 2024
I was fortunate enough to see Josh Ritter on stage again in Santa Fe, New Mexico last year. It was a wonderful night from a supremely gifted singer-songwriter who sometimes I wonder does not get the accolades he deserves.
Ritter’s eleventh album is concise and exact. At a shade over thirty-five minutes, not a word or breath is wasted. Heaven, Or Someplace As Nice was recorded very quickly with legendary jazz guitarist Bill Frisell with minimal overdubs and there’s a glowing warmth that nestles the material so well. The album follows on the heels of his 2023 release Spectral Lines (read our review).
Ritter’s “Only A River” appears here. It was recorded by Bob Weir, being the first single from his striking collection of dusty trails and cowboy songs Blue Mountain. Reportedly Bob Dylan has been including it in his live set. Here it is.
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Our Top Six Albums November 2024
Our Top Six Albums November 2024
Our Top Six Albums November 2024
