During the past weeks, I’ve been sharing a lot of singles from forthcoming albums, but here’s one monumental 2018 album that is already out and available and sets the bar pretty high for the new year. It’s the new H.C. McEntire solo Lionheart that came out on Merge Records on the 26th of January. Previously she has given us a lot of amazing music as the singer and songwriter of the great North Carolinian band Mount Moriah. This astonishing solo debut contains Southern country sounds, folk rock songs and soulful gospel hymns delivered with power, passion and clarity. The album is a personal, influential and eternally beautiful. Especially the hymns of the album A Lamb, A Dove and When You Come For Me leave such a giant mark on my heart. She was raised in a religious family where being gay was not an option and now she sings in a gospel-like hymn that “I have found heaven in a woman’s touch” and does it with such grace, empathy and dignity. It’s not an aggrieved attack, it’s a lesson of deep kindness. Highly needed in this world where lack of empathy often seems to be like a running theme. Lionheart is a powerful album that everyone should hear.