Widowspeak have announced that they’ll release their sixth album, The Jacket, on March 11 through Captured Tracks. The duo of Molly Hamilton and guitarist Robert Earl Thomas have also shared a single and video from it called “Everything Is Simple”, with Hamilton saying:
“At the beginning of something (a relationship, a project, a job, a new place) you have this very pure feeling toward it. Everything feels less complicated because you’re oriented wholly toward that potential. It’s undefined, and that makes it easier to understand, because you can’t see the problems yet. As time goes on, you learn more, you experience more, and you see where the limitations exist: not even necessarily ones imposed upon you, but where you draw your own lines. Maybe you can’t see what was holding you back until it’s in the past, and by then others’ perspectives contradict your own. Everyone is constructing their own versions of reality. The song was originally going to feed into the drama of the imaginary band, but it’s about our own band too. I was thinking about how I’m an inherently unreliable narrator about my own life, and at the same time maybe there are no “true” stories.”
Widowspeak approach this intriguing topic with meditative like calmness, their gauzy and minimalist take on desert rock the perfect vessel for this inner monologue. As the song progresses, Hamilton’s voice remains calm even as she admits “everything is simple until it’s not”, while the guitar and drums ever so slightly tip towards frustration, without ever exploding. It’s a charming sound, as if the singer’s thoughts and minor realisations are being turned over and over so many times that they start to fray in a display of minor frustration. Ultimately, Widowspeak aren’t going to find any solutions – they just have to take a deep breath and accept changing perspectives as a fact of life, and with “Everything Is Simple” they invite you to do the same.
The video for “Everything is Simple” features plenty of bucking horses at a rodeo, silently animating the whirring mind of the singer. Check it out below or listen on streaming platforms.
Widowspeak’s new album The Jacket will be out on March 11 through Captured Tracks. Find the band on Bandcamp, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
