Album Review: Lacey Sturm - Kenotic Metanoia

I pretty much checked out on 2023 early this year. By the middle of November, I was ready to call 'cut' on this one, and I didn't see anything listed on my calendar of upcoming releases to keep me invested in continuing the search until next year's albums started to roll in. This sort of thing happens every year, but it set in a bit earlier than usual, which only reinforces everything I've been thinking all along. Still, I'm never truly closed off from something new catching my attention at the last minute, and that's a quality I'm always a bit proud of.

This year's late entry comes in the form of Lacey Sturm, the Flyleaf singer who is now releasing her second solo album. Funnily enough, my only real experience with Flyleaf is from the first album she was not with the band for. There's one song from that one I've always remembered fondly, so when I saw Lacey's name pop up on my radar, I was a bit curious what she was doing on her own that didn't make sense to do as a Flyleaf record. I think I understand.

The songs on this record are a chronicle of Lacey's spiritual journey, telling us about the moments of clarity that define the way we see the world. It doesn't make as much sense to put these out under any other name, because they are the focus of her life, they are the ethos that drives everything she does.

It also so happens that Lacey is the sort of voice who towers above a band, and she is going to find up the focal point no matter what she does. Her voice has as much power as a full stack of Marshall amps, but more than that, she is a performer in the purest sense. She belts the songs out when needed, but on a song like "(I Died)" she throws so many colors and inflections into her singing that she is acting out the moment when you stare up from the bottom and see the edges of the hole finally grow closer. Listening to her is captivating, and she lays down some of the best vocal performances I've heard all year.

Mainstream rock is hard to talk about, both because it doesn't seem to mean much of anything anymore, but also because so much of it fits into a box so narrow we can't turn around to see if we've passed by the point. Lacey's songs are mainstream rock, but done with such care and attention to detail that they elevate to the highest tier. Her melodies are superb, grounding all of these tracks in choruses that pop out from the background like a pastel-colored children's book. These are dark sounding songs, but given such heart they're hard to keep away from.

The highlight is "Breathe With Me", a dramatic song featuring Lacey's voice intertwined with Lindsey Stirling's violin. It is gorgeous, moving, and makes me think some rock band needs to have a full-time violin player. The tone is undeniable, and it gives the record a crescendo that makes it feel like a true journey that has taken us to somewhere new and unexpected.

I don't know what kind of year it was for the mainstream rock charts, since I don't pay attention to that sort of thing, but I have a hard time thinking there was much (if anything) from that world better than this record. It's late in the year, but that just makes it even more satisfying to find a record that makes this kind of impact. After everything 2023 has had in store for us, and our minds are overloaded and ready to be purged, Lacey Sturm found room to wedge in another great memory.

How 'bout that?