Emily Sprague’s earliest songwriting was born of loss. The cult US songwriter was severely injured in a hit-and-run accident on her bike in 2014; a few years later, her mother passed away. Her first two albums braided these experiences into exquisite, diaristic indie-folk, mostly backed by a three-piece band, which reckoned with existential questions: a beautiful contrast of light and dark.
After Florist reverted to Sprague’s solo project for the 2019 album Emily Alone, the band reunited for this self-titled effort of 19 songs recorded during rainy summer nights on a porch in the Hudson Valley. It plays like a family portrait, an ode to the nurturing power and comfort of their friendship. They preserve the warps, defects and background cricket choruses of June 9th Nighttime: the unpolished edges feel like the sound of a band falling in love with each other all over again.
More than that, even, you get the sense of them staking out new ground together: their sound, usually soft and steady, becomes a thrilling lesson in catharsis (an evolution not dissimilar to that of peers Big Thief). Finely spun instrumentals like Duet for 2 Eyes and the Bells trilogy prove that Florist are capable of evoking real relief without saying a word.
Sprague’s writing retains its sense of conflict over life and death, but she writes from a place of serenity. “She’s in the birdsong / She won’t be gone,” she sings of her mother on Red Bird Pt 2 (Morning), finding hard-won peace within herself, her band and the natural world.