Mary Gauthier just has one of those voices. Unmistakeable, mesmerising, and thought-provoking. Everything she does, and says, is worth listening to.

She has a new album, Rifles & Rosary Beads, out today via In The Black / Thirty Tigers. Four years in the making, it is a collaborative record in the sense that the eleven songs were co-written with wounded veterans in the SongwritingWith: Soldiers retreats.

Just listen to the poignant and evocative The War After The War below, with it’s gorgeous violin backdrop and insistent guitar as well as (we suspect) what will be one of our favourite opening verses of any song we hear this year.

Who’s going to care for the ones
who care for the ones who went to war?
There’s landmines in the living room
and eggshells on the floor