Based in America for the last few years, Lo Carmen has slowly been absorbing that country’s country music, blending it with her atmospheric slowcore sound and emerging with beautiful new album that seamlessly connects both worlds.

Lovers Dreamers Fighters is just what it says, a document of the highs and lows of relationships, the bruises of devotion and the eternal light at the end of every tunnel. She assembled an impressive band and studio team for the recording and found the perfect vocal foil in Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy for the classic country ‘sound of Sometimes It’s Hard’. The dreamy, heavy-lidded sound of Mazzy Star and Cowboy Junkies is still a key part of Carmen’s sound, framing her coy and husky whisper of a voice. In the past her voice has occasionally felt at odds with the music but here it is entirely at one with the warm rattle and shuffle of the drums and plenty of weeping pedal steel and strings.

Carmen employs plenty of fine choruses including the memorable lyrics of ‘Rhinestones In the Rain’ and ‘Put Another Record On’, painting exquisite vignettes of encounters and their aftermath. The lush quality of the music, its romanticism and strong leanings towards country soul, makes this the perfect late-night soundtrack for a slow dance with your favourite drink.

Chris Familton