Album of the week: Bird in the Belly – The Crowing

Combined with the equally impressive Laura Ward, Jinnwoo’s startlingly beautiful growl provides the backbone to a series of long-forgotten songs dug out of libraries, archives, book sales and blogs by this Brighton musical collective.

Welsh Ploughboy, with its rhymically infectious chorus, the chilling Duke Of Grafton and the singalong Verses On Daniel Good all demand repeated playing, while Shoreham River is a jaw-dropping vocal tour de force by Jinnwoo.

Folk album of the year so far.

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BETTYE LAVETTE

Things Have Changed (Verve) – out on Friday

**** (4 stars)

She has toured with Otis Redding, recorded for Motown and had a disco hit with Doin’ The Best That I Can back in 1978. But in recent years Bettye Lavette has become known for superb interpretations of other people’s work, including The Who’s majestic Love Reign O’er Me.

On Things Have Changed she applies her chewy, richly soulful tones to a blissfully unorthodox selection of Dylan songs.

Don’t Fall Apart On Me Tonight, a largely overlooked track from his Infidels LP, is particularly powerful, as is Ain’t Talkin’, from Modern Times, one of the master’s best lyrics from recent years.

Dylan’s own guitarist Larry Campbell provides nuanced accompaniment throughout. A gem. 

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KACEY MUSGRAVES

Golden Hour (MCA Nashville/Decca) – out on Friday

*** (3 stars) 

Musgraves’s last studio album, Pageant Material, was both a celebration and subtle subversion of country music. It sold well and announced the 29-year-old Texan as a fresh and vital addition to the often over-airbrushed ranks of new country artists.

Newly married and clearly in love with the world and everything in it, Musgraves seems strangely less assured on the follow-up. The opening track Slow Burn, a glorious slice of acoustic Americana, gives way to a series of sweet but not particularly memorable tunes.

Space Cowboy (as in, groan, you need some space, cowboy) is particularly woeful as is Velvet Elvis. The album picks up a little on the excellent High Horse, its Daft Punk-style fade-in one of many indicators that Musgraves wants to move out of country a little, and the title track is a breezy, 1960s-style gem, but there’s a slight sense of water being trod. 

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KRIS BARRAS BAND

The Divine And Dirty (Provogue/Mascot) – out now

*** (3 stars)

A former champion cage-fighter, Kris Barras is also a fine blues guitarist. On this third album he channels his admiration for the late Gary Moore into lyrical but hard-edged playing and songs which always have a strong commercial hook.

Best of the bunch is Blood On Your Hands, which sounds like Moore’s old band Thin Lizzy.