Album Review: Mel Parsons - Drylands

Exceptionally written, beautifully arranged and remarkably consistent, Mel Parsons' Drylands is the type of album to become privately essential to individuals scattered across the globe without ever necessarily setting the world on fire.

It's really quite impressive how comprehensively Parsons has crafted her third album. Songs like Alberta Sun, Far North Coast and Get Out Alive are not only memorable and immediate but also boast beautiful and idiosyncratic flourishes of instrumentation and arrangement to further distinguish them from the work of Parsons' more anonymous folk singer peers. It feels too subtle to breakthrough to massive audiences, but it probably should.