Okay, which of you, our esteemed readers, spotted that there was no ‘Monthly EPs Round-Up’ article for July? Well, we’re back, and we’ve combined last month’s offerings with August’s allocation for a bumper edition covering a wide range of americana styles, including music from parts of the world rarely included in these pages. So, with no further ado, let’s dive in and, most importantly, discover who the recipient is of August’s EP of the Month award.
We begin with something a little special: the new five-track EP from Whitney Mann, titled Electric Heart. Mann first came to our attention in 2009 with her debut EP, The Way Back Home, which led to an opening slot with Willie Nelson and earned her ‘Best New Artist’ at the Madison Area Music Awards. This was then followed two years later by a second EP entitled The Western Sky and further accolades; however, and not for the first time, her music did not fit with the increasingly saccharine-saturated sound emanating out of Nashville, and the pressure of continuous growth and success began to take its toll, so that by 2016 Mann chose to take a hiatus, settling down to have a family. But now she’s back, with this new EP that struts its stuff straight from the opening bars of the title track. The new collaboration here with veteran producer Hayward Williams takes Mann’s singer-songwriter style to a new place, revealing greater depth and soul, which in turn exposes a distinct difference in the poetry which now connects with a sense of wisdom, the sort that is hard-earned and well-learned. So whether it’s the sass of the title track that hints at Margo Price, or the sagacious narrative of What About Heartbreak, a piano-led number propelled forward by a heavy backbeat from the percussion and a vocal delivery that just shouts attitude, this EP has it all. The beautiful Nothing but Time slows the pace while still managing to deliver enough bite, with a narrative that avoids over-sweetening the taste, before some Tom Waits-esque percussion opens the reflective Above the Flood, which excels with a subtle arrangement that reveals more with each listen. The EP closes with the infectious Different Kind Of Easy, which amply displays all the newfound confidence in Mann’s performance and craft. With the release of Electric Heart, Mann has made a triumphant return to the music scene, and Nashville better be aware, for this time round she’s not going to be politely knocking on the door; she’s gonna kick that damn thing down. Needless to say, this EP comes highly recommended.
The quality is maintained with the six-track EP entitled Ghost Stories from independent Canadian singer-songwriter Johnny Dell. Here, as with the previously reviewed EP, Dell deliberately avoids the over-polished, pop-infused structures embedded in much of what can loosely be described as mainstream country. Instead, Ghost Stories takes a much more minimalistic approach, with the musical arrangements allowing the focus to remain firmly on high-impact storytelling, with Dell armed with nothing more than an acoustic guitar and a voice weathered from years of surviving on the fringes of the music scene. The six songs that make up this excellent EP explore themes of haunting dreams and gritty realism, all captured by Dell’s dark narrative and brooding delivery that keeps that sense of hard-won authenticity throughout. From the opening number, Curtain Call, all the way to the closing track Till Dawn, the EP captures the unfiltered energy of a solo performer who values technical independence and bulletproof legitimacy over the overused soft option of studio trickery. Here, the song rules, with the raw weight of the lyricism doing the bulk of the heavy lifting, and nowhere is that better emphasised than on the track El Muerto, with its stark, evocative visual narrative providing a masterclass in simple atmospheric storytelling that mirrors the song’s desolate energy. With Ghost Stories, Johnny Dell has produced an EP built for listeners who appreciate the unvarnished edge of classic armericana singer-songwriting, and again comes highly recommended.
We remain in Canada, Edmonton to be exact, for our next review and indie folk singer-songwriter Candice B & The Light Meter’s new five-track EP entitled Golden Hour. In case you were wondering, the B. is for Bartlett, the abbreviation of Candice’s surname, and the music here draws inspiration from artists such as Fruit Bats, Ricki Lee Jones, and Bon Iver, blending warm acoustic textures, layered harmonies, and thoughtful songwriting into a sound that feels both intimate and expansive. The EP opens with the title track, which sets the musical soundscape for the bulk of the material: heavily strummed acoustic guitar to an infectious rhythm and delightful vocals, subtly supported by sparse arrangements, in this case a banjo that helps the song connect to its rustic roots, acting as an antidote to the sweetness of the melody, thus avoiding leaning too closely to its pop sensibilities. A gorgeous cover of The Head and the Heart’s Rivers and Roads follows in a similar vein, here with the addition of a choral arrangement during the chorus, creating an almost hymnal quality, again skillfully maintaining a level of integrity despite the obvious commercial bent. The possible highlight is Field Notes, where the impassioned vocals deliver with a sense of abandon that loosens the shackles from the melody, freeing up the narrative to allow for a more adventurous and interesting song structure ably supported by the subtle use of a stringed arrangement. There is more excellent use of the banjo on Rise, which offers another high point, though the rather excessive production of the closing track No Problem fails to match most of what’s gone before. That said, Golden Hour is a highly enjoyable listen, and with the EP already charting in her homeland, it would be fair to say that we will all be hearing a lot more of Candice B & The Light Meter.
Okay, time for something closer to home, in fact, to the very home of AUK, Liverpool and the new four-track EP from our good friend Only Child (aka Alan O’Hare) entitled Sings Springsteen. Last year saw the release of Only Child’s sixth album, the excellent Holy Ghosts, which helped cement O’Hare’s reputation as one of the finest singer-songwriters to emerge from these shores over the last decade. A fully signed-up member of the Bruce Springsteen fan club, O’Hare was also instrumental in securing the great man’s first visit to Liverpool for two concerts at Anfield last year. This new EP pays homage to the emotional intelligence contained within Springsteen’s songs, especially on class consciousness and the fears and realities of redundancy and no work. Three of the four tracks that make up this EP draw from the trials of the working man, with Factory, My Home Town and Nothing Man being three of the New Jersey bard’s finest songs, while the fourth offering, Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street, which first appeared on his debut album Greetings From Asbury Park, delivers a sense of respite and distraction. Surprisingly, O’Hare’s interpretation here offers little variation, with the sparse arrangements mimicking the original and only the faint refrain of a scouse accent separating new from old. Even the broader palette on the closing number, in particular the use of the saxophone, varies little, clearly intent on paying reverence to a hero rather than creating anything remotely inventive. Of course, this may very well have been the intent, with O’Hare, along with his good friend and fellow Liverpudlian Ian Prowse, constantly being labelled by the press as the “Scouse Springsteen”, and on that level Only Child’s Sings Springsteen is, if nothing else, an enjoyable listen, though one can’t help but feel that an opportunity has been missed.
Next up we have Kashus Culpepper and his new four-track EP entitled Act1: Summer Nights. Described as a seasonal addendum to his lauded debut album Act 1, which received critical approval from NPR, Rolling Stone and Billboard. A native of Alabama, Culpepper recently earned his first nomination for americana honours and awards, in the ‘Emerging Act of the Year’ category, for his debut release, which offered an interesting mix of neo-country soul with enough pedal steel to maintain a level of instrumental integrity. With this new EP, Culpepper, along with producer and co-writer Mike Robinson, explores another dimension with a lighter, one could argue poppier, and groovier side, drawing on a myriad of influences and a kaleidoscope of music. Opening with the Allen Toussaint classic and much-covered Summer Nights, Culpepper shows due reverence but offers little new, with an overindulgent arrangement, watering down the richness of this all-time classic. The remaining three songs, Let Me Show You Love, Miss You Much Longer, and Till The Sun Goes Down continue in a similar vein, with a sound that would feel far more at home on the dance floors of the local disco than on the country’s dirt roads and proves undoubtedly that it takes more than a liberal use of pedal steel to make a song remotely country, even less so americana. With Act1: Summer Nights, Culpepper may have indeed wanted to take advantage of the critical success of his debut album and broaden his musical horizons, but this offering lacks any of the grit and dirt under the fingernails of its predecessor, with a production that is way too smooth, so that it falls a long way from the description of americana.
A much more rewarding listen comes from Brian Mello and his new four-track EP, intriguingly entitled Ditch Swallows. A veteran indie artist from Oakland, California, Mello follows up his 2023 EP, The Orchard, which received high praise from this very feature, with an EP that also seeks to blend country and soul, but here with far more success. In truth, the influences expand to include shades of chamber pop and even a hint of progressive rock, but it all works, more or less, due to the quality and craftsmanship of the songwriting. The EP opens with Desert Train, which is fundamentally a no-nonsense country rocker, with its chugging rhythm reminiscent of the sound made by the train carriages rumbling across those vast desert plains, supported by the lonesome howl of David Knupp’s harmonica, who incidentally is also holding down the bass, all nicely decorated by some delightful Travis-pickin’ from the guitar. Mello’s vocals resonate with a soulfulness that puts him in the same modern-day bracket as Chris Stapleton, all heard to good effect on the following number, Far Cry, where some delightful backing vocals from Sandra Mello help elevate this song to be a particular highlight. Elsewhere, the title track comes across as a bit of an outlier, where sweeping chamber music intersects with echoes of prog rock to create an interesting blend that falls somewhere between Jonathan Wilson and Elbow, all held together by an intriguingly haunting narrative: “Ditch swallows lost in flight, turn and wheel in the fading light, not worried that they’ll fall”. Evocative poetry which, on its own, is quite mesmerising, though in the context of the rest of the EP, not necessarily a perfect fit. That feeling is emphasised by the closing song, Where All The Love Goes, a traditional singer-songwriter ballad with just the right amount of pedal steel from David Phillips to suggest country without being country. With Ditch Swallows, Brian Mello has delivered another excellent and varied selection of songs that, despite the range of influences it clearly draws from, works because of the quality of the material, testament to Mello’s skills as a songwriter, and this EP should see him step up to the top table amongst his contemporaries.
Next up, we have James White & The Wild Fires with their new five-track EP, How to Replace Anxiety with a Broken Heart. Formed in 2019, the band have carved out a distinctive space at the intersection of psychedelic folk rock and traditional American roots music, with a sound that blends atmospheric, expansive textures with the structural clarity of bluegrass and americana. After the chart success of their debut EP, Making Tracks and the follow-up, Live at Saffron Hall, the band stepped away from the spotlight at the conclusion of a sold-out tour in October 2023. Since then, the project has entered what White described as “a new phase, intentional, reflective and potentially finite”, following the announcement that this may well be the band’s final body of work. This new collection of songs retains all the high energy and lung-bursting urgency that was pivotal to their earlier recordings, anchored by the direct and emotionally unfiltered songcraft of White. In particular, The Girl From Fort Worth, which sets off at a relentless gallop, turning the spotlight on the sparkling musicianship, guitars and fiddles firing off each other, all catapulted on by a rhythm section intent on breaking the speed limit. A similar tempo drives The Ballad of Jimmy Blanco, where again the rhythm section excel, while White’s vocals are delivered with a punkish attitude that conjures comparison with Ken Casey of the Dropkick Murphys. With Lysander, the band unleash their psychedelic influences, generating a sweeping cosmic ambience before the closing number, Bonfire, eases slightly off the gas, offering an anthemic warning, replete with lashings of fiery guitar licks. If, as is suggested, How to Replace Anxiety with a Broken Heart is to be the final offering from James White & The Wild Fires, then with this EP they depart the stage with all guns blazing.
The new six-track EP from Audrey Loveland entitled One Is Not Like The Other is something of a collaboration, with several singers, musicians, producers, and engineers involved in helping to shape the warm organic ambience emanating from this release. The writing for this EP took place during a period of uncertainty and severe depression for Loveland following a diagnosis of young-onset Parkinson’s disease, with each song here reflecting a journey of perseverance, vulnerability and ultimately acceptance, wrapped neatly in six vignettes that highlight the honesty rooted in the resilience of the human spirit. The opening song here, Restless Woman, features Loveland on lead vocals that immediately set the scene with its reflective and intimate folk storytelling, honing in on matters of the heart and a search for a pathway through life’s most difficult trials. Tom Bedlam takes the lead on the emotive Dear Emily, while Martina’s vocals elevate the third track, The Bird, blending strains of jazz against the acoustic strings of a song rooted in the folk idiom. Bedlam again takes lead vocals on both The Floodgates and Angel By The Bay, with both songs here receiving a broader arrangement that emphasises the EPs pop sensibilities, though Bedlam’s vocals on the latter are a particular highlight. The closing song, The Ride Called Life, is sung by RAYM and is a delightful ballad of hope with a narrative that encapsulates what lies at the heart of these songs. With One Is Not Like The Other, Loveland has created an enjoyable collection of songs, and though with so many different voices it does struggle to create musical cohesiveness, even if the narratives do loosely knit together, it would not be surprising if any one of the individual songs went on to achieve a relative degree of chart success.
Next up is the new four-track EP, Towards A More Perfect Union, from Long Island-based gothic country and folk artist Christian Williams. Originally from Milwaukee, Williams’ recording career spans over twenty years, and many will be aware of his 2007 release Built With Bones, which was ranked in some quarters as the most essential gothic-country album of all time. A few more albums would follow, but there has been nothing since 2008 and Thirty Minutes With Christian Williams, until now, and the release of this new EP to coincide with the 250th anniversary of American independence. The four songs here comprise two newly remastered tracks from his 2008 release, songs that Williams feels deserved a wider hearing, along with two brand new compositions written over the past year. Williams states that each of the songs here is bound together by a shared concern: “the United States as a country in distress, governed by leaders who hold power by manufacturing division and the stubborn conviction that cooperation and honest reckoning with history remain the only viable path forward”. Stripped of adornment, the arrangement here is simple: vocals, acoustic guitar, and banjo. The narrative of the four songs revolves around the founding ideals of the American Revolution and how far it has drifted from them, creating four classic 21st-century folk protest songs. So from the opening refrain on Empire through to the closing number This Great Divide, Williams traverses the cycles of poverty, militarism and greed before concluding with a hard-won attempt at peaceful dialogue. The two new tracks here, Mammom along with the final song, are possibly the strongest, giving hope that Towards A More Perfect Union is just the first in a return to songwriting and recording from Williams, as the current global and political status quo certainly offers up boundless amounts of material.
Now, I hope you have your passports ready, for we’re heading to the delightful city of Rio de Janeiro and the new five-track EP from singer-songwriter and guitarist Daniel Gnatali, entitled Antes do Sol. Gnatali blends a kaleidoscope of musical styles, bridging folk, samba, forró, rock, shades of country, and pop ballads, delivering his emotional stories full of romantic instability in both his native Portuguese and English. This fusing of musical styles would appear to run in the family, as his Great-Uncle was the legendary Radamés Gnatali, whose career through much of the 20th century straddled the genres of classical and popular music and their traditions. With this new EP, the title translates to Before The Sun, Gnatali brings the colours and sounds of his native Brazil and combines them with Western melodies, drawing strong comparisons to many of the singer-songwriters from the 1960s and 1970s. The first two tracks are sung in Portuguese: the opener Ventre a Luz do Mundo features guest vocals from Gnatali’s sister, Nina Becker, while Estacão exudes a certain country flavour, thanks mainly to the subtle use of banjo against the strong Latin flavours. The following two numbers, both sung in English, take on a more traditional folk ballad structure, firstly with Dear To Me proving reminiscent of Paul McCartney’s work during the second half of the 1960s, with a certain simplicity in both melodic and lyrical approach, enriched by some delightful harmonies and a piano outro. Lady Lo follows a similar pattern, with a delicate melody, emphasised by some gorgeous single-picked notes from an acoustic guitar. Closing number Quando me Mudei injects a greater energy, combining elements of 1970s Brazilian rock with some fiery country licks from an electric guitar that intrigues and confounds in equal measure. With Antes Do Sol, Gnatali has delivered a refreshing blend of musical styles, drawing from a vast range of influences over the last fifty years, and though musically it is almost impossible to categorise, the quality of the musicianship and delivery is undeniable and makes for an extremely enjoyable listen.
Okay, time for something completely different, or should that read extremely familiar, with the new five-track EP from The Old Country Crows optimistically entitled The Good Times Are Back Again. The band, who formed in 2010, are based in South-East Kent, UK, and to date have released three albums and three EPs, with their most recent offering, the album Invisible Highway, seeing the light of day last October. With their musical influences rooted in the classic sound of the late 1950s and 1960s high-energy rock ‘n’ roll, this four-piece, fronted by Gary Virtue on vocals and guitar, wastes no time finding their groove, with the first three songs here having become a staple part of the band’s live repertoire between 2014 and 2019. Opening with the title track, they deliver a brand of rock ‘n’ roll that leans strictly in the direction of bands such as the Flamin’ Groovies and the Stray Cats as opposed to Showaddywaddy or Mud, with plenty of rocking riffs from the guitars, a solid rhythm section, and some delightful piano playing. Virtue’s vocals are the heart and soul of the band, with his nostalgic narratives adding to the band’s vintage sound, as on I Won’t Need No Rockin’ Tonight, where lead guitarist Chris Pike excels. Waste My Time arrives with an infectious beat and a style of narrative that recalls the heyday of Brinsley Schwarz, while I’m Not Staying Lonesome Anymore has a real country twang that evokes an image of line dancing being performed in some empty farm shed out on the Texas prairies. The one new track, Back To You, could have come straight from the Canvey Island legends Dr Feelgood, with the same attitude and energy, along with some fantastic interplay between Pike’s guitar and guest pianist Liam Gisby. With The Good Times Are Back Again, The Old Country Crows have once again proved that rock ‘n’ roll is here to stay. Amen to that.
So, Eleven EPs reviewed and two to go, and as there was no ‘Round-Up’ last month, resulting in this extended edition, and the overall quality being so high, I have decided there should be two winners for August’s ‘EP of the Month’ award.
Our first winners this month are Monte Warden & The Wagoneers and their new five-track EP Doghouse Flowers. This Austin, Texas-based americana and rockabilly band, led by singer-songwriter Warden, originally formed in the 1980s, becoming one of Texas’ defining roots-country acts, earning a loyal following for their high-energy performances and timeless songwriting. The recent odd-defying independent chart run by the title track has propelled the band back into the national spotlight, inspiring them to release their first multi-song project in over 35 years. Opening with Doghouse Flowers, which climbed to No. 18 on the national americana chart, spending thirteen weeks in the Top 50, this is pure rockabilly ecstasy that captures all the excitement and energy the genre created when it first appeared some seventy years ago. Warden has long been regarded as one of Texas’ premier honkytonk songwriters, and following the band’s original run, built a respected career as a songwriter, penning songs for artists including George Strait, Patty Loveless and Travis Tritt. Those songwriting skills are probably best demonstrated on the heartbreaking ballad Yesterday Stopped By (Listen below), where the vocal interplay between Warden and the band is truly exquisite. Elsewhere, Warden and the Wagoneers keep the dance floor swinging from the anthemic Stout And High to their infectious rendition of Ray Charles’ classic I Got A Woman, which conjures up all the sultry swagger of a young Elvis. In between, Ballad of Paladin is pure cowboy country heaven that recalls the great western shows of the early sixties. With Doghouse Flowers, Monte Warden & The Wagoneers have well and truly put rockabilly back on the map, delivered with the expertise and passion by a group of musicians clearly masters of their craft. Let’s pray it’s not another 35 years before they treat us to the fruits of their labour.
And in equal first place we have Micah Felts with his new five-track EP, somewhat confusingly entitled I Don’t Know How To Write A Song. Born and raised in Oklahoma, Felts released his debut EP, Between, in January of 2024, which helped his career maintain steady momentum despite the struggles of working as an independent artist. This new release finds Felts honing his skills as a singer-songwriter, blending contemporary folk with americana in a collection of songs that explore themes of grief, love, anxiety, and self-discovery, exuding a spiritual quality that draws comparison to the wonderful Julian Taylor. Opening with Silver Lining, Felts’ warm, expressive vocals caress the reflective narrative against a sparse, intimate arrangement that generates an ambience as personal as it is universal. Rivers includes vocal support from Callan Brown, which, along with the delightful Smaller Mountains (listen below), was recorded in Tulsa. The remaining tracks from the EP were all recorded in Nashville, including Pink Clouds, which was recently featured in the CBS television series Sheriff Country, while the title track recently won the 2026 Jimmy Lafave Songwriting contest presented by Red Dirt Relief Fund in Oklahoma. This newfound exposure is a testament to the quality of Felt’s craft that should now propel him to the forefront of the new crop of singer-songwriters, and with this new EP, where every song is a keeper, it is surely only a matter of time before his name is on everyone’s lips.
