We’ve written about Bloodlust, the new EP from Nashville singer-songwriter Melanie MacLaren, several times in recent months. The record is “the product of a period marked by experiences of grief, loss and illness,” as we put it previously, as MacLaren looks “to push beyond the myths we tell ourselves and look at mortality with a clear gaze.” This takes a number of forms across the four tracks, from the existential musings of ‘Heaven Is‘ and the infectiously inventive ‘Get It Back‘ to ‘Laika‘, which channelled the story of the titular space dog to explore, as we wrote in our review, “humanity’s propensity to exploit the vulnerable more generally, and how the powerful continue to disregard the rights and dignity of everyone else.”
With Bloodlust now out, Melanie MacLaren has unveiled the final single and title track, a song which captures the EP’s essence perfectly. Opening with soft picked acoustic guitar, winding pedal steel and MacLaren’s voice, the song is a gentle and clear-eyed exploration of aging and death, weaving together threads of beauty and sadness until its almost impossible to tell which is which. “Bloodlust is a river, all thing must wither,” she sings in the opening line, “you can’t go with her even though you miss her so.”
Things kick up a gear as the song progresses, steady percussion and some crunches of guitar adding a sense of forward motion. And, despite the subject matter, it’s not exactly a sad song. Rather one that’s familiar with life’s inevitable imperfections, trying its best to come to terms with the bittersweet nature of things. “This project is me trying to make peace with the constant cycles of loss we all inevitably experience in our lives,” MacLaren describes of the EP. “It’s looking for the moments of joy without feeling like you have to minimize your grief and anger.”
Bloodlust is out now via streaming services.