Widowspeak - Roses (Limited Edition on Cherry Red Eco-Mix Vinyl)

Across the ten tracks that make up the seventh and newest Widowspeak record, intimate spaces and stages of love are captured with a nostalgic, vaseline-coated lens. Candles burn inside red glass as lovers get close in a leather booth. Celebrity headshots gaze down like angels in a restaurant. Elsewhere, carnations are pressed in a black book and dancers pull each other close. Widowspeak is a band that riffs on big emotions without being too self-serious. The sweetness, even silliness, of an extended limerent phase that becomes as all-consuming as a pulpy trade paperback. Cars and their drivers serve as a way to talk about codependency. And old love gets worn in, soft as an old t-shirt. If music can simultaneously be naturalistic and noir, saturated and lush, that is Widowspeak. They’re a band that knows how to set a scene.

These songs use intimate moments to talk about deeper heartaches: the restlessness inherent in modern existence, waiting around for something to happen, or feeling at odds with playing a role in your own life. Roses might be the most romantic Widowspeak record, but it’s also the most deeply realist: the stage is set not with dramatic overtures but the backdrop of the minutiae and repetition of daily acts. Here, love is a way to talk about what drives us, and Widowspeak suggest it can be the whole point. The light that illuminates the dark corners of a day, a life. A reason to keep going despite the pain it can cause.