With its easy blend of adult pop and narrative driven lyrics, Ewan MacFarlane’s debut solo album ‘Always Everlong’, released in 2021, set the Scottish singer songwriter on a very accessible musical path this year. Displaying the kind of talent that makes him appealing to a broad audience, it was easy to hear traces of Tom Petty in the title cut, but there was far more about the album’s maudlin moods that shared a heart with past works by fellow Scotsman Blue Rose Code, even without the material taking a pop/rock route rather than an obvious country influence. Whatever your take on it, the album – which took shape during the first lockdown of 2020 – couldn’t be any further removed from MacFarlane’s earlier recordings with Apollo 440.

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