Favorite Americana and Roots Albums of 2023
It's that time of year again when publications drag out their annual Best Of 2023 lists. Here at Concerthopper Album Review Central, we love these as they always give us something new to listen to and put on our Christmas list. But, as with every year, we avoid the “Best” label on our list in favor of “Favorite.” This is simply because, even keeping ourselves limited to Americana albums, there are just too many released every week for us to ever hear them all. Here's hoping you find something new to grab at your local indie record store to stuff in those stockings! Where we reviewed the album, we have included a link. Where not, we've included a YouTube video of a highlight song from the album.
10. Cidny Bullens- Little Pieces
One of the best things about music is its ability to give you a chance to understand the experiences of a demographic not your own. In the case of Cidny Bullens, Little Pieces offers an opportunity to walk in the shoes of a transgender man, both the struggles and joys. It's all wrapped in a mix of power pop and roots music that'll keep your toes tapping.
9. The Arcadian Wild- Welcome
Is it Americana? Folk? Jazz? Chamber Pop? You'll ask yourself those questions throughout your first couple of listens of Welcome. After that, you'll decide you don't care. Whatever genre you place them in, The Arcadian Wild has delivered a fun album of intelligent tunes that challenge listeners in the best way possible at every turn.
8. Whitney Rose- Rosie
After an illness hospitalized her and prevented her from touring in 2023, Whitney Rose poured that pain into her latest studio effort, Rosie. The result is an album that flawlessly blends classic country and '60s pop (think Skeeter Davis) in a way that is a natural maturation from her last album, 2020's We Still Go to Rodeos.
7. Hello June- Artifacts
A major step forward for Hello June. Primary songwriter Sara Rudy proves her album title is apt as she digs deep into her own experiences for an intensely first-person album of highly literary lyrics. From a dying love (“Faded Blue”) to a dying parent (“Interstate”) to an ode to her newborn nephew (“Sometimes”) to a stellar cover of John Denver's “Country Roads (Take Me Home)”, there's plenty to recommend here.
6. Parker Millsap- The Wilderness Within You
Parker Millsap, already one of Americana's most willing explorers, just keeps expanding his boundaries on The Wilderness Within You. The album, often a musing on stepping away from the electronics addiction to reconnect with people, surprises with its technological flourishes, pulling from New Wave and Krautrock on songs like “So Far Apart.”
5. Doolin'- Circus Boy
It's not often you hear the term “French Celtic Supergroup.” But that's Doolin' for you. However, on Circus Boy, the band expands beyond its Celtic roots into Folk Pop (“The Darkest Way”), Americana (“Circus Boy”), French pop (“L'amour Sorcier”), and Calypso (a cover of Harry Belafonte's hit “Man Smart, Woman Smarter”). The result is one of the most fun albums on this list.
4. Dom Flemons- Traveling Wildfire
Dom Flemons is Roots Music's most dedicated historian. He began (alongside Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson) his work of unearthing the almost-forgotten history of black string band music with Carolina Chocolate Drops and has continued to do so with his solo records for Smithsonian Folkways. But Traveling Wildfire also shows off Flemons' love of traditional country, from the ambling waltz of “Slow Dance With You” to the Marty Robbins-esque western story song “It's Cold Inside” alongside his historical remembrances like “Nobody Wrote It Down.”
3. Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway- City of Gold
Wanderlust is the loose theme of City of Gold, the new album from Molly Tuttle's bluegrass project Golden Highway. Co-written almost entirely with Old Crow Medicine Show's Ketch Secor, Tuttle, and her stellar all-star band blast through a set of tales about gold rush pioneers (“El Dorado”), a road trip between two lovers trying to mend a widening gap (“Yosemite”, featuring guest vocals from Dave Matthews), and a lament for the loss of the wild and crazy festival fans who have given way to selfie-snapping scenesters (“Where Did All the Wild Things Go?”)
2. Cinder Well- Cadence
While it's not the #1 album of the year so far, it's a near thing. No album bowled me over like Cadence in the first half of 2023. I was familiar with Amelia Baker's “doom folk” project from her excellent previous album No Summer, but nothing prepared me for the dark explorations of the “thin places” in our reality where magic, not always positive, happens. Songs like “Two Heads, Grey Mare” and “Gone the Holding” practically drip with the Old Ways of Baker's home on Ireland's coast.
1. Jason Isbell- Weathervanes
One of these days, Jason Isbell is going to release an album that's “just” really good. This isn't that year and, like every other release year since I've been doing Album of the Year lists, he comes out on top. Backed up by The 400 Unit, who just continue to make the case that they're this generation's Heartbreakers, Isbell continues to write fully fleshed-out characters in four-minute rhymes. There's the opioid-addicted protagonist of the standout song “King of Oklahoma,” the girl coping with the fact that her racist town “won't get no better, will it?” on “Cast Iron Skillet, a man breaking down about how to raise his child in a world where schools get shot up every other day on “Save the World,” and so much more. Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit are the kings of rock and roll right now and they don't look interested in surrendering the throne anytime soon.