Go backstage with The Music and receive FREE:

  • Exclusive members-only editorial, charts
  • Our subscriber-only newsletter
  • Members only competitions to win tickets, experiences and more
  • Access to our street press archives
  • First access to our exclusive limited edition vinyl variants

Thank you for being a part of our community! Enter your email address as verification and you'll be taken backstage right away.

Please ensure that you provide a valid email address.

Album Review: Mel Parsons - Drylands

StarStarStarStar

Exceptionally written, beautifully arranged and remarkably consistent.

More Mel Parsons Mel Parsons

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.