This May, Toronto singer-songwriter Abigail Lapell is releasing Anniversary, a brand new full-length on Outside Music produced by Tony Dekker of Great Lake Swimmers. First single ‘Anniversary Song’ introduced “the marriage of symbolism and tangibility used across the record,” as we wrote in an earlier preview, painting “romantic chemistry as both otherworldly magic and physical reaction.” But just as the record pushes beyond poignant ballads towards upbeat country rock, so too does Lapell move beyond the traditional focus on romance in order to explore the full spectrum of love. “I wanted to explore some of the contradictions within the pop culture notion of love,” as Lapell explains. “These dichotomies of light and dark, love and loss, fleeting and eternal—even in the traditional wedding vows, ‘sickness and health, richer or poorer.’”
If the lead single showed the slow reflective side of the album, latest single ‘Rattlesnake’ displays a different dimension entirely. A toe-tapping, foot-stopping country rock song shot through with a determined energy. A finger-picked electric guitar line charges the lyrics full of prophetic charge and esoteric weight. The effect is furthered by sound’s impressive depth, a product of recording at the two hundred-year-old St. Mark’s Church in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, a location which provides a stark, receptive space into which Lapell’s vocals emerge.
Bring me water, bring me wine / Bring me flower garlands
Will you be my valentine / Would you be my darling?Sew a penny in your shoe / Blessings on the journey
I’ll cut a lock of hair for you / And keep the fire burning
Watch the video by Adam CK Vollick below:
Anniversary is out on the 10th May via Outside Music and you can pre-order it now.