Kashus Culpepper

Act 1

The debut album from this Alabama newcomer has earned some notable admirers – Elton John among them. It features consummate (collaborative) writing that spans Southern soul, blues, country, folk and rock, and remains respectful of tradition without being in thrall to it, the handsome grain of Culpepper’s voice, with its gritty, yearning edge, bringing a honeyed, effortless power.

Opener ‘Southern Man’ has a rootsy, rhythmic push, and is strafed by steel guitar, whilst ‘Alabama Beauty Queen’, with its rueful musings, and the strings-assisted ‘Stay’, with its doo-wop backing vocals, have a very different feel. ‘Mean To Me’ feels perhaps a little too close to Kings Of Leon’s robust earnestness, while ‘That’s the Feeling’ runs long due to a wailing guitar solo, but Culpepper is understandably keen to show off his range, and there’s much to enjoy across these 18 tracks.

Label: Big Loud

Courtney Marie Andrews

Valentine

Courtney Marie Andrews channels Americana, folk and classic country into sincere expressions of love and loss, wearing her heart on her sleeve while writing with her eyes wide open.

The bluntly romantic title of her ninth album is not a nod to February 14, but the name of the LA studio where recording took place. It’s a perfect title for 10 rich, hook-studded songs born from “a very dark period” of Andrews’ life. The results are intense but never tortured, delivered in a clear, sweetly powerful voice that’s equal parts Joan Baez and Linda Ronstadt.

There are echoes of Joni Mitchell, Christine McVie and Carly Simon, while ‘Little Picture Of A Butterfly', the record’s wild card, brings us Kris Kristofferson’s ‘Help Me Make It Through the Night’ remodelled via an extended passage of flute and gently tumbling drums. On the intriguing ‘Best Friend’, meanwhile, Andrews leans into Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ both sonically and lyrically (‘A best friend/Wish I had a best friend… Someone freak, freak like me’).

Label: Thirty Tigers

Sunday Mourners

A-Rhythm Absolute

Though billed as their debut, strictly speaking this is the LA quartet’s second album but given how close to the surface their influences were on their first, you can see how adopting a clean-slate position might have appealed. Either way, the songs on A-Rhythm Absolute have confidence to burn and their creators are not so disingenuous as to have denied their formative crushes. Velvet Underground, Television and The Strokes are still the band’s guides to style and tonality but what makes the difference is how they channel their energy, which is via ’60s “freakbeat” music, new-wave and kosmische. 

It’s a set full of sharp-edged grooves, twangled strings and attitudinal swing, singer Quinn Robinson’s lyrics exploring love as well as the kind of existential issues you’d expect to trouble any Gen Zedder living in the US right now. His keening voice can’t help but recall Television’s Tom Verlaine, but Sunday Mourners are at their best when they steer away from that band’s path: “Unwitting Boy”, which owes something to NZ indie trailblazers The Clean, and the urgent, 12-minute drive of “Darling” are highlights. 

Label: Curation

Dry Cleaning

Secret Love

Third albums can prove tricky project for bands with a distinctive signature style. How do you move on, and avoid repeating previous sounds, without ditching what sets you apart? It’s something London’s Dry Cleaning must have considered, given the singular nature of Florence Shaw’s style as a singer and lyricist, yet their latest release bears no trace of a creative crisis.

Secret Love sees the group skilfully rearranging familiar dynamics while introducing fresh elements. Notable among those is Shaw’s occasional melodic singing, as opposed to her characteristically deadpan spoken-word, a change that necessarily affects the music-vocals relationship. The band made a smart choice calling in producer Cate Le Bon, whose vision behind the desk is matched by the art-pop alchemy of her own records. 

The result is a set that’s just as carefully intentional and rides on more droll (though surprisingly poignant) observations of everyday modern life, but has a new vivacity. Standouts are the post-punk/dub hybrid of ‘Evil Evil Idiot’, which considers food neuroses, and the surprisingly gentle pastoralism that carries ‘Let Me Grow And You’ll See The Fruit’.  

Label: 4AD