Lily Seabird Lightspheres on Their Way
Lily Seabird’s Trash Mountain was one of my favorite albums of 2025. It hit that indie country spot that I was enjoying at the time (and still am enjoying), and it had some gorgeously un-idyllic imagery of her Vermont home. So when I saw she was playing Denver’s venerable hi-dive this past March, I jumped at the chance to go. Turns out, Seabird has more than twang in her toolbelt. As I should’ve guessed from her wonderfully noisy single “Demon in Me” (released just a few days before the show), this was an all-out rock show, boosted by two loud-ass guitars and more than a little snarl in Seabird’s typically tremulous vocals. It landed squarely between alt-country and grunge, and it’s a sound that’s carried over to Seabird’s new record, Lightspheres on Their Way, nine songs that alternate between a buzzsaw of broken emotions and a quiet resilience to keep going.
While “Demon in Me,” curiously, isn’t featured on the new album, the first single, “Election Day,” is an even more emphatic throwback to the quiet-LOUD best of early 90s alt-rock. Seabird credits much of the sound on Lightspheres to jammy bands (the Dead, Ween) that her mom listened to in that time period, but “Election Day” feels like a crunchy nod to Hole, with a squall of guitars, a difficult choice unsubtly shouted out – “I don’t want your attention, love me or leave me the fuck alone” – and a big, fat rock finish. “Portal to the Past” borrows another 90s influence – Neil Young’s excellent early-decade records with Crazy Horse are recalled, particularly in the song’s chugging guitar outro – and melds it with Seabird’s own examination of how exactly things went so wrong – “I wore a hole in myself thinking about it/There I built a portal to the past/I saw us imagining our adult selves/I never imagined us so lost.”
As thoroughly enjoyable and well-executed as the classic rock influences are on Lightspheres, it’s Seabird’s darkly evocative songwriting that makes this album a level-up from even the excellent Trash Mountain. “Bindlestiff” is an acoustic rocker about loneliness and distrust that features a line – “You’d say two things at once and still somehow mean three” – that sent a cold shiver down my spine the first time I heard it. “Slipswitch” feels as if it was recorded on a tour bus or in a hotel room, with a loneliness – “And I was standing there in all the emptiness of all the people I loved the most“ – to match its musical spareness (the album was recorded in producer Garrett Linck’s Maine home, in a room heated by an honest-to-God woodstove, no doubt contributing to the spartan feel for the players, to the benefit of the listener). Overall, it’s a dark, autumnal-feeling record, but the concept inherent in the titular “lightspheres” – bursts of illumination, whether they come from people, memories, or something less tangible – shines through in the title track, which wraps the record. Along with guitar from Seabird and Rick Soszynski and a pulsing harmonium line, intense memories come flooding back to the singer – “Underneath those Bucks County stars with her cigarettes in the snow/Bleary eyed and too far gone, crying out to her daily dose of the Dead.” The weight of it all – her family, a former lover, life gone by – has her ready to explode – “Make a sound so goddamn loud, it sends the lightspheres on their way.” it’s an answer, but it’s not the one she chooses, instead consoling herself (and maybe fibbing to herself a little) by repeating “I’ll be alright.” It’s not a solution so much as weary resolve, and it’s as real as anything you’re likely to hear this year.
Song I Can’t Wait to Hear Live: “Election Day” – Loud, raw and unapologetically direct, it’s my favorite rock song of 2026.
Lightspheres on Their Way was produced by Garrett Linck and Lily Seabird, engineered and mixed by Linck and mastered by Amar Lal. Songs written by Lily Seabird. Musicians on the album include Seabird (vocals, guitar, Wurlitzer, piano, harmonium), Linck (bass, guitar, EBow guitar, piano), Rick Soszynski (guitar, bass, lap steel), Daniel Snyder (harmonium, drums), Eliza Niemi (cello) and Sam Atallah (trumpet).
Go here to order Lightspheres on Their Way (physical release September 4, streaming October 2): https://lnk.to/lightspheres
Check out tour dates here: https://lilyseabird.bandcamp.com/track/demon-in-me
Enjoy some of our previous coverage here: 45 RPM (Reasons to Purchase Music) for 2025