So, it’s been another world-beating year. Known unknowns and unknown unknowns – at least two people have set Donald Rumsfeld’s 2002 Pentagon musings to music, and I’m sure I’m not alone in finding his words rather useful. Indeed, it’s not hard to imagine Bob Dylan writing something similar, back in the day.

Irrespective of its seasonal nature, the thread running throughout O Come All Ye Faithful is a mood of contemplation which could colour any of Hiss Golden Messenger main-man M. C. Taylor’s albums.

Jason Isbell is a bigger noise on the other side of the Atlantic than he is in the UK but his last three albums have, nonetheless, bothered the middle-regions of the British album charts. He’s built a critically lauded career with his band The 400 Unit since leaving Drive-By Truckers a decade-and-a-half ago, merging country with rock and various southern US styles.

The Outlaw meets Jesus, at least on CD. The Willie Nelson Family finds The Red Headed Stranger singing some of country-gospel’s most celebrated songs, including Hank Williams’ “I Saw the Light”. It’s his second album of 2021 – the first, That’s Life, released in February, was a beguiling collection of Frank Sinatra covers.

How do you imagine the wind at dawn? Biting, brisk, peremptory – a kind of summons as another day begins? 

In his 1985 essay “Not-Knowing”, the American writer Donald Barthelme describes a fictional situation in which an unknown “someone” is writing a story.

Oh boy, there’s nothing like slipping on an old pair of jeans and cowboy boots. That’s the comfy feeling you get from the opening notes of Pokey’s new road trip in the company of some great musical ghosts. Hank Williams, Fats Domino, Carl Perkins – perhaps even the whole damn Million Dollar Quartet, with Buddy and the Everlys dropping by. Pokey hugs them all close, with the best of results. A trip through Middle Americana.

There’s a modesty to the Felice Brothers, an absenting of ego, even as they seek glimmers of transcendence in the vast American night.

Already Dead’s opening cut is titled “Youth on a Spit”. As it unfolds, Willy Mason declares “I feel no pain I’ve already bled / You can’t kill me I’m already dead.” After setting a pessimistic tone the next track is the “You’d Like to be Free”, a disquisition on a life where feelings of specialness haven’t been reciprocated by passively waiting for something to come along. “You blame the things you didn’t get…you never let yourself enjoy the thing you are,” sings Mason in his familiar disconsolate voice.