New Normal Streams

  RUSHMERE Album ∙ Alternative Folk ∙ 2025 Mumford & Sons For their first album in seven years, and first as a trio, the British folk-rockers Mumford & Sons went back to their roots.  RUSHMERE , their fifth album, is named after the pub in southwest London where Marcus Mumford, Ted Dwane, and Ben Lovett first got to know each other as friends and eventual creative collaborators. They were humble days, coming years before tracks like “Little Lion Man” helped define a strand of optimistic folk pop that dominated the early 2010s and influenced 2020s stadium-fillers like Noah Kahan and Zach Bryan. RUSHMERE  pulls back from the pomp and splendor of folk-rock stardom and gets back to basics: furiously played guitars and rousing vocal harmonies, with Marcus Mumford’s sincere, resolute burr leading the way. Produced by Nashville straight-shooter Dave Cobb, who’s known for his unfussy, song-forward approach to the studio,  RUSHMERE  places the powerful songwritin...

1994 Album ∙ Alternative Folk ∙ 2024 Nathan Evans Like unpolluted birdsong or fitness king Joe Wicks’ countdown buzzer, Nathan Evans singing sea shanties online is a sound that will always take Britain back to the days of the pandemic. In particular, the Airdrie artist’s viral take on whaling song “Wellerman” landed him a chart-topping single in 2021 and a major-label record deal. For all the success those covers brought the former postman, and all the joy they offered a locked-down nation, his focus was always establishing himself as a singer-songwriter of original material—a purpose this album serves well. Evans’ warm songs of love, resilience, and optimism borrow liberally from folk tradition: the busy banjoes and whiskey drinking of “Perfect Storm”; the gleeful fiddle scribbling through “Highland Girl”; and the haunted harmonies and intricately picked acoustic guitar of Foy Vance collaboration “I’m a Man.” However, “Perfect Storm”’s lyrical nod to Snow Patrol—“And now we’re dancing...