John Blek: The Midnight Ache (Bigger River Recording Co) ★★★★
Releasing 12 studio albums in 20 years is the mark of someone who doesn’t give up, but John Blek’s work is a rarity in that quality has never been an issue. His new album doesn’t break the run of classy songwriting, and, as usual with his output, he alters the style to suit song themes and moods. For The Midnight Ache, Blek essays a particular form of tender yet deceptively persuasive power pop that brings to mind the likes of Brendan Benson, Matthew Sweet and Fountains of Wayne. Rack up another winner.
Dani Larkin: Next of Kin (Larkin Records) ★★★
#“I wanted the record to start with the first breath of darkness into morning light,” Dani Larkin, the Co Armagh singer-songwriter, about Morning, the opening track on her second album. The song, a spectral arrangement of Morning Has Broken, Eleanor Farjeon’s hymn from 1931, is, suggests Larkin, an acknowledgment of the mystery of life. Although Morning sets the scene for the rest of the album, Larkin is smart enough to balance the otherworldly with the corporeal, with striking alternative pop songs such as I Wake, David, High King and Come Home to Me. The outcome is as distinctive as Larkin herself.
Van Morrison: Somebody Tried to Sell Me a Bridge (Orangefield Records) ★★
Van Morrison follows Remembering Now, his late-career highlight from 2025, with more memories, except these 20 tracks tip a fedora more to blues legends than to his own reveries. This is Morrison in dressing-gown-and-comfy-slippers mode, performing classics by the likes of Leadbelly (On a Monday), John Lee Hooker (Deep Blue Sea), Fats Domino (Ain’t That a Shame), Sonny Terry/Brownie McGhee (Can’t Help Myself) and Willie Dixon (I’m Ready). Four originals – Monte Carlo Blues, Loving Memories, Social Climbing Scene and the title track – stick to the outline, but, despite the mood, this is one of Morrison’s more ho-hum albums.
Noelle O’Sullivan: Rolling on the Inside (Self-Released) ★★★
Noelle O’Sullivan has taken her time to release a follow-up to Seeds, her debut album, from 2011, but life’s upsets (which include the death of her father) have slowed down somewhat to allow the Kerry-based singer-songwriter to collect her thoughts into songs. The album starts guardedly with Fall Away, Memphis Wolf River and End of the Earth, but it quickly gathers pace with Unravel, Tumbleweed, Soho, the title track and Pink Sky, each of which has a casual but fully charged pop-folk sensibility. Producers and playlisters take note.
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Ailbhe Reddy: Kiss Big (Don Giovanni Records) ★★★★
A vivid study in how love gathers pace, slows down and then either reignites or self-combusts, Ailbhe Reddy‘s third album unfurls in only the way life and love can: a red carpet edged with trust, fringed with doubts and displaying random stains to highlight the spillage. The song titles (including That Girl, Untangling, Graceful Swimmer, Gorgeous Thing and the title track) are as direct as the lyrics, but the spoken-word track Crave highlights, above all, the contrasts of how long-term relationships recognise compromise as much as conflict. A short album – nine pop songs across 32 minutes – stuffed with hugs, humanity and heartbreak.
