Laura Veirs 
Temple Songs 
(Raven Marching Band) 
⭑⭑⭑⭑☆

HAVING released albums for over a quarter of a century, Portland-based Laura Veirs is now a mainstay of the US indie folk scene. And a very welcome one at that. 

On her 14th studio album the US singer-songwriter does all the writing, recording (in her backyard studio), arranging and producing duties.

Her voice and music have always felt reassuring, and though she wouldn’t be described as a political artist, several songs engage with the wider political world. 

The Martin Luther King-quoting opener Arc Still Bends finds her asking: “The arc still bends to justice, right? / I’m not so sure in the middle of the night.” 

Elsewhere, No Masters is apparently inspired by the late 1800s activist rallying call “No gods, no masters,” while Sunlight And Doom uses fragments of lyrics from ancient Greek poet Sappho. 

Concise and delightful.  

The Waterboys 
Atlantic Rain: The Lost Fisherman’s Blues Recordings 
(Chrysalis)
⭑⭑⭑⭑☆

MOVING away from “The Big Music” of songs like The Whole Of The Moon, between 1986 and 1988 The Waterboys holed up in Ireland to record Fisherman’s Blues, arguably their greatest album, inspired by Celtic music, folk and country. 

That it was a stupendously fertile period for the UK group was confirmed by the 2013 release of a six-CD boxset of outtakes from the sessions. Improbably lead singer Mike Scott has now discovered more music from the studio marathon, collected on this new three-CD set. 

It’s an embarrassment of riches, from the epic Come Back To Galway to the soulful gospel of Light Shine On Me, by way of covers like Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door, This Land Is Your Land and When Doves Cry. 

A fascinating insight into a rock band at the top of their game. 

Yard Act 
You’re Gonna Need A Little Music 
(Republic) 
⭑⭑⭑☆☆

FORMED in 2019, Yard Act burst onto the British indie scene with their Mercury Prize-nominated debut. 

Recorded in their hometown of Leeds, You’re Gonna Need A Little Music finds the boys in the band evolving their post-punk, hip-hoppy sound of their previous records, with fresh echoes of the work of classic acts like Pulp, the Prodigy and Arctic Monkeys. 

Apparently the album is a commentary on how individualism has created a lack of shared reality “because everyone just believes what they want now.”

Empty Pledges is a pressure cooker of a song, frontman James Smith’s urgent vocals inducing an intense level of anxiety (I think I hear a reference to Right To Roam). Tall Tales, with street intellectual Smith in full-on preacher mode spewing lines about the American Dream and peace in the Middle East, is another highlight.