Kathleen Edwards

Her sixth album, and the first in five years, produced by Jason Isbell and Gena Johnson in a more expansive, muscular frame than Total Freedom. Where that one leaned inward, this pushes outward, arrangements immediate and live. The words stay sharp: Other People's Bands skewers the small indignities of an industry that sidelines women, funny in its bite rather than bitter. Little Red Ranger is the centrepiece, building patiently, the chorus slipping in like a revelation rather than a hook. Her voice carries a weathered edge now, less pristine than on Failer, richer for it. Not a reinvention or a retreat. A recalibration.