(Lame-O Records, vinyl, CD, digital)
When Burlington singer-songwriter Lily Seabird first appeared on the Queen City music scene in 2021 with Beside Myself, she seemed to arrive fully formed as an artist. For a newcomer, Seabird’s tool bag was shockingly full: Here was a performer capable of tremulous, gentle indie folk suffused with equal parts heartbreak and wonder. And yet some kind of steel spine held it all up, a redoubt of gritty tenacity that lurked just beneath the softness.
Amid snarling, overdriven guitars and bellowed melodies, that fortitude muscles to the forefront on Seabird’s latest, Lightspheres on Their Way, released last week. It’s too easy to say Seabird has accepted grunge into her heart. The way she pushes into angular, distorted sounds is more reminiscent of Neil Young’s excursions with Crazy Horse — a songwriter similarly known for staggering intimacy who suddenly plugged into a wall of amps to let the pandemonium in his head out to play.
A good example is the torpid, country-rock shuffle of “Portal to the Past,” which builds slowly to a crescendo with Seabird’s voice shattering and reforming as she revisits old loves and former pains. The song ends in a blown-out jam that would be at home on a Courtney Barnett record, all twangy guitars and hazy regrets.
Seabird’s embrace of heavier sounds won’t surprise those lucky enough to have caught her live in recent years — an increasing rarity locally, given her rising national profile and touring schedule. Starting with last year’s haunting Trash Mountain, Seabird has grown harder to categorize, a trend that holds on Lightspheres on Their Way. Whether raging on “Election Day” or gently questioning the existence of God on album opener “The Pulley,” Seabird can devastate or charm you in just about any sonic setting.
Part of what gives Lightspheres on Their Way its edge is the sense of doom hanging over everything, such as on “The Afterglow,” when Seabird sings, “But I was just a little drunker than I thought I would be / if only the sky turned yellow when a ghost crossed in front of me.” Or the way she channels loss on “Blackstar”: “I don’t even wanna be someone if you’re not here with me.”
But darkness doesn’t rule the album — lightspheres do. Seabird defined the term in a press release as anything that “shifts stories, feelings, and trajectories.” And those spheres illuminate her songs: little moments of forgiveness, recollections of love, and growing acceptance of how life changes and complicates as we age.
The album closes on the title track, which encapsulates all the emotions and sonic terrains of the record at once. Singing to her mother and contemplating mortality as she returns home for a visit, Seabird ends the record with a triumphant “Tell her I’ll be all right!” It’s a powerful conclusion as Seabird summons an image of a woman dancing on a hill in the sunlight, reveling in her freedom.
Lightspheres on Their Way is only partially available on streaming services. To hear the entire record, pop down to your local record store and pick up a copy. Seabird begins an East Coast tour next month. Vermont dates include November 15 at Foam Brewers in Burlington and November 17 at Stone Church in Brattleboro.
This article appears in September 9 • 2026.
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