Country & Folk

New album: Old Heavy Hands || Small Fires

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It still is a nice story, how Old Heavy Hands came into being. Almost naturally, because Nathan James Hall (vocals, guitar), Larry Wayne Slaton (vocals, guitar, keys) and David Self (lead guitar, vocals) from the Legacy Irons Tattoo shop in Greensboro, North Carolina, Josh Coe (bass, mandolin ) from the bar next door, and John Chester (drums) from the bar across the street, bumped into each other daily, where music quickly created a bond. The songs for their new LP Small Fires were born during acoustic sessions inside the shop, and finished in their practice space built in Hall’s barn – filled with snakes, spiders and chickens – where friends and family walked in and out to contribute to the record. It has become an album with a big sound, massive vocals, thumping drums and heavy guitars, a mix of southern rock, Americana and grunge – with a punk rock feel – but as heartfelt, warm and soulful as possible. Impressive and memorable.





Small Fires, produced by Danny Fonorow & Old Heavy Hands, is out now digitally, on CD and vinyl LP through Spitting Daggers Records. Also featuring Laura Murphy (backing vocals), Carri Smithey (backing vocals), Josh King (backing vocals), Casey Cranford (saxophone), Eli Fribush (saxophone), Zac Lee (trumpet) and Justin Gerringer (trombone).

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Old Heavy Hands

New album: Brown Horse || Reservoir

By / / Country & Folk / Leave a Comment

The music we love most is authentic, sincere and real – it starts with feeling and believing. Americana six-piece Brown Horse, based in Norwich, UK(!), fits that description seamlessly. The songwriters/musicians – Ben Auld, Emma Tovell, Nyle Holihan, Patrick Turner, Phoebe Troup and Rowan Braham – call themselves alt-country nobodies, but that will soon change now that their beautiful debut album Reservoir has seen the light of day. We get ten guitar-driven songs with enchanting idiosyncratic vocals. The content is dark, the sound is warm, the atmosphere is melancholic. An authentic, sincere and real record.


Reservoir, produced by Owen Turner, is out now on CD and vinyl LP through Loose Music.

Add to wantlist: Loose Music

New album: Lily Seabird || Alas,

By / / Country & Folk, Indie Pop, Indie Rock / Leave a Comment

Ready for an impressive piece of indie-folk, with influences from grunge and shoegaze? Lily Seabird is a singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist from Burlington, Vermont (US), and her sophomore full-length Alas, touches my soul. The title, including that comma, refers to an expression often used by her friend Ryan Collins who passed away in the middle of recording this record – an expression of grief but also for letting go. The songs are about loss, coming of age and sadness, but there are also moments where happiness takes over. And that’s what you feel, not only through the lyrics, but even more so how those versatile vocals convey them, and how the instruments manage to touch the raw emotions. Listen, for example, to standout track Grace, in which an irresistible and uplifting melody turns into an outburst of howling guitars, but also in the other songs the instruments – not only guitars, bass and drums, but also piano, fiddle, strings, mellotron, organ and saxophone – to follow the different sentiments. An impressive piece of indie-folk.




Alas,, produced by Lily Seabird & Benny Yurco, is out now digitally, on on cassette through Bud Tapes. Also featuring Greg Freeman (guitar, piano, fiddle, percussion), Noah Schneidman (bass, percussion), Zack James (drums), Michael Nau (backing vocals), Seth Kauffman (strings) and Benny Yurco (guitars, bass, percussion) on selected tracks. The album is dedicated to Ryan Collins.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

Dusted || The 10 Best Cover Songs Of December 2023

By / / Alternative Rock, Blues & Roots, Country & Folk, Garage Rock, Indie Pop, Indie Rock, Power Pop, Punk / 1 Comment

Not all new music is really new, as many artists cover songs. Sometimes these are songs by their favorite artists, eg as a tribute to such a musical hero for a special reason, or they simply feel that a song deserves to be dusted and polished to reacquaint fans with great songs from the past. Other times, bands cover songs as a parody. Regardless of intent, some of those cover versions are so good or so much fun, we’d like to put a spotlight on them. Chosen from a wide range, here are – in random order – ten of our favorite covers from last month – links to the pages where you can add them to your wantlist included.

One final look back at 2023 before we start 2024. In December we not only came across countless Christmas adaptations, but we also listened to cover releases by Jim Bob (This Is My Mix Tape), friends & family of Dan Sartain (Dan Sartain Vs. The World (is gonna break your little heart)), various artists from the Dualtone roster (Discovered & Covered), Trevor Horn (Echoes – Ancient & Modern), The Anchoress (Versions), Dave Finney & The Procrastinators (Covers) and Spencer Cullum’s Coin Collection (Aquarium Drunkard Lagniappe Session 2), and to tributes by various artists to Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Smiths, Metallica (all on Cleopatra Records) and Guided By Voices (Rusted Gear Records), but below you can hear ten other melancholic cover songs to evoke nostalgic feelings.

My Shadow Tags on Behind || Cover: The Cribs || Original: Adam Green
On Capitane Records’ 2-LP Moping in Style: A Tribute to Adam Green, 26 largely well-known names – Jeffrey Lewis, Regina Spektor, Father John Misty, Devendra Banhart, The Libertines, Sean Lennon, The Lemonheads, and so on – show how many good songs the American singer/songwriter delivered after his life in the Moldy Peaches. Lots of successful material, but I particularly enjoyed hearing British indie rock band The Cribs again.

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Music Year-End List || Niek’s Favorite Singles and EPs of 2023

By / / Alternative Rock, Country & Folk, Garage Rock, Glam Rock, Indie Pop, Indie Rock, Jangle Pop, Power Pop, Punk / Leave a Comment

Our final year-end list is my 50 favorite Singles & EPs of 2023. ICYMI, Dennis published his last week, and we previously both shared our favorite albums of the year – mine here and Dennis’ over here.

I am presenting these singles alphabetically. Ranking them is near impossible and getting my longlist back to 50 releases was hard enough in itself. If there is one takeaway from this list and our other lists it’s that 2023 was a pretty amazing year in the sonic underground.

Find my list below, and a Spotify playlist with 80% available content of my list here. Wishing you happy holidays and see you all next year!

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Music Year-End List || Dennis’ Favorite Singles and EPs of 2023

By / / Blues & Roots, Country & Folk, Funk & Soul, Garage Rock, Indie Pop, Indie Rock, Power Pop, Psych, Punk, Surf Music / 5 Comments

By now you’ve probably seen our lists of favorite albums – here‘s Niek’s and there‘s mine – but 2023 also gave us lots of short format releases that were wantlist worthy. Below you can listen to the Top 50 singles and EPs that I enjoyed the most last year (note: individual songs are excluded). I would have liked to purchase some more physically, but that’s quite an expensive challenge with retail prices where 15 euros (16 USD) for a 7″ single and 40 euros (43 USD) or more for a six-track 12″ EP are no exceptions. Anyway, luckily there are other ways to hear them. Looking over the playlist, I guess that this music is a bit faster and wilder than that of my AOTY list – what is too exhausting for a full-length, works well for just a few songs. In my world you could have a fun dance party with this, including a few moments of rest in between to recover.

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Music Year-End List || Niek’s Favorite Albums of 2023

By / / Alternative Rock, Country & Folk, Garage Rock, Glam Rock, Indie Pop, Indie Rock, Jangle Pop, Power Pop, Punk / 3 Comments

2024 is upon us! Time for the wonderful tradition of ranking the finest records of the year. Do I take this process too seriously? Of course! But I tried not to overthink it too much this year, to simply let my list reflect the albums that brought me the most joy in 2023 – it really is as straightforward as that. My list features 50 records I wholeheartedly recommend, many of which transitioned from my wantlist to my collection – you can glimpse them in the picture atop this post. I also included another 50+ notable mentions, and I still feel I left out some really great stuff.

That says a lot about what an amazing year for music 2023 was. And yet, I worry about how sustainable the current musical landscape is. The shared struggles of label owners, bands halting tours due to escalating costs that far outweigh the benefits – these stories trouble me. Then there are the developments at Bandcamp, Spotify and Twitter/X. The potential of these platforms to create something of value for artists, labels and listeners is limitless, but the people in charge keep self-sabotaging, laying-off staff and in case of Spotify, perpetuating financial challenges for the independent artists and labels we passionately support.

I think that makes sharing music recommendations, encouraging people to buy records and visit shows more crucial than ever. Remarkably, 2023 brought renewed recognition and appreciation of music blogs, driving increased readership for ATW. So yeah, there also is reason for optimism. Let’s see what 2024 will bring.

To all the artists and labels we write about, and to our fellow bloggers, I’d like to thank you for your tremendous contributions in 2023. Let’s keep swimming against the stream of mediocre algorithms together.

On topic! Find my list below – and check out my playlist with most of the releases here. If you frequent this website, you know what to expect: pop hooks, crunchy guitars, jangle stuff, underground pop, ramshackle lo-fi production, indie rock, garage rock, power pop and punk rock. Hungry for more and something different? See Dennis’ amazing list which is more eclectic and boasts approximately 90% (!) unique content.

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New album: Cartwrights || Years At A Time

By / / Country & Folk, Garage Rock / Leave a Comment

Obviously American singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer Greg Cartwright (Reigning Sound, The Compulsive Gamblers, The Oblivians) is a hero of ours. Nice to see that his work has inspired Mike Fraser (vocals, guitar), Wayne Marcin (bass, guitar, vocals) and Stu Rankin (drums, vocals) to start a band and eventually borrow his name. Cartwrights’ new full-length album Years At A Time contains nine tracks that fuse garage rock and indie folk, without shying away from big gestures. Vibrant guitar riffs, thundering drum rolls, raw vocals and even a whoo-hoo-hoo sing-along chorus (in King of Tonight) – the musicians from Thunder Bay, Ontario (Canada) hand over a solid and heartfelt roots rock record.



Years At A Time, written by Mike Fraser and arranged by Cartwrights, is out now digitally, and soon on CD and vinyl LP, through Lost Dog Records. Also featuring guitarists RJ Little and Casey Laforet on selected tracks.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

Music Year-End List || Dennis’ Favorite Albums of 2023

By / / Alternative Rock, Blues & Roots, Country & Folk, Funk & Soul, Garage Rock, Indie Pop, Indie Rock, Jangle Pop, Power Pop, Psych, Punk / 3 Comments

While Taylor Swift emerged as the top artist of 2023 (26+ billion global streams on Spotify alone), I mainly sought refuge in the long tail of the continuous stream of releases (not a favorable position: from 2024 tracks must have reached at least 1,000 streams to get royalties from Spotify’s money grubbers – all the more important that we’ll support these artists in other ways). Of the 2,600+ new albums I listened to, I added 130 to my longlist of wantlist-worthy releases – the ones I liked and played the most are in the Top 50 below. What struck me? Besides the usual themes – life and death (and the search for meaning), love and loss (and longing), fun and sadness (and anger), sex and drugs (and rock ‘n’ roll) – songwriters seem to struggle with time and place more than before. There is a kind of conflict going on in society between people who want to move forward or want to hold on to the past, but many songs reflect the realization that we live in the here and now. Tristan Peach from The Small Intestines dreamed that George Harrison and Tom Petty were on motorcycles circling one of the huge roundabouts in Canberra (Australia), their long hair blowing as they sang “You can’t hide in time” – it became the title from their debut album. It’s just one of the many references to this intriguing theme in my favorite albums from last year. Floodlights’ On The Television, one of the standout tracks from their Painting Of My Time LP, probably puts it most powerfully: “The time is now!” Let’s listen.

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New album: David Christian || Rekkords!

By / / Country & Folk, Indie Pop, Indie Rock, Punk / Leave a Comment

British singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist David Christian (Comet Gain) is accountable for this week’s quirkiest album, a noisy 13-track solo tribute to vinyl records: “Not enough time and not enough money and they keep releasing them and finding them, so here’s some songs about them and the people who make them.” A premise we can only applaud, and although the execution is wobbly and the sound lo-fi, every word and note come from the heart, and that’s what really matters. It’s a pleasant fan lesson in music history, with a lot of name-dropping (do yourself a favor and read the explanation the artist gives for each tune on Bandcamp, pure poetry), and reportedly there is still enough material for parts 2 and 3. “The circle willl never be unbroken!”



Rekkords! is out now digitally (self-released). Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

Update (December 8): As a kind of addition – similar in concept and sound – Comet Gain has put the (I Hate) Christmas Records! EP online.

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