Mel Parsons: Sabotage (2024)

This intimate album sounds like a collection born of sadness: the opener is the moody Circling the City about aimless driving at night after burning a bridge and offers “I’m always so tired I am done. Please remember me, I used to be fun”. There is an aching weariness in her delivery. Offer Down could be a message-to-self after knock-backs: “You’ve been working hard, keep getting knocked back. Those bruises will callous, paying off down the track”. The hypnotic title track touches on similar territory which confirms no one does honest, downbeat folk better than Mel Parsons.

Next: Mel Parsons, Slow Burn; Rosanne Cash, The River and the Thread; Steph Casey, The Seats in my Car

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