Ivan Moult emerges with his most soul-stirring work yet on 'Stood Out In the Storm'

Ivan Moult has always written with the sensitivity of someone who listens closely to people, places, and the quiet in-between. But on 'Stood Out In the Storm', the Cardiff songwriter turns that attentiveness inward, crafting a record that feels like a hand gripping a lifeline in the dark and finding, slowly, that it holds. It’s his most affecting work yet, delivering a fragile, luminous collection shaped by the slow, patient act of climbing out of the wreckage.

Where his previous offering 'Songs From Severn Grove' carried a warm glow, this new album moves like a lantern flickering against the wind. Moult’s unmistakable style is still here, but the emotional stakes feel sharper, and the edges more exposed. You can hear the aftermath in every note: the breath held too long, the heart stitched back together, and the quiet flicker of hope refusing to die out.

Recorded once again in his home studio, the album has that unmistakable closeness, as if Moult is sitting only a few feet away, letting each confession hang unguarded in the air. His soft and unforced voice carries the weight of lived experience without ever tipping into melodrama. Instead, he chooses gentleness, clarity, and honesty, the kind that stays with you once it's over.

There’s a beautiful continuity here too. This record feels like the nocturnal sibling to 'Severn Grove' , but written after the storm broke, sifting through debris with both reverence and courage. The songwriting is tighter, the emotional range wider, and the production, subtle as it is, feels more assured and atmospheric.

With growing champions across BBC radio and live slots with some of folk’s most beloved names, he is quietly becoming one of Wales’ most compelling storytellers. But 'Stood Out In the Storm' is the moment where everything coalesces. A record born of upheaval, shaped with tenderness, and carried by a quiet determination that feels utterly disarming.

This is Ivan Moult at his most open, most vulnerable, and most powerful. A songwriter staring down the dark and choosing, defiantly, to keep moving toward the light.