A welcome and successful return to songwriting and making records.
Temple Songs, the 14th solo album released by Laura Veirs, represents something of a comeback for the Portland, Oregon-based singer-songwriter, author, music teacher, podcaster and visual artist (painter). The record sees Veirs’ return to songwriting and making records, this being her first LP of new material for four years, since 2022, when Found Light emerged. Of course, there have been releases during that time, 2023’s Phone Orphans, which consisted of a selection of old, previously unreleased songs that Veirs had recorded using a mobile phone during the period 2016 to 2022 (although the record featured 14 songs, these were chosen from a catalogue of some 900). Then in 2025 came Laura Veirs and the Choir Who Couldn’t Say (Live In Angoulême), a collaboration between Veirs and a French school choir performing songs from Veirs’ back catalogue. As well as a return, Temple Songs is something of a leap of faith for Veirs, being as it is the first album that she has written, recorded, arranged, produced, and performed; playing guitars, bass, drums, tambourine, percussion and vocals, indeed everything except for the saxophone which is played by someone who is, intriguingly, named only as “Filthy” Lucre). On returning to making records again, Veirs says, “I didn’t know if I would write songs again,” and further, “I wrestled with a lot of doubt.”
You may legitimately be asking “What has Veirs been doing during the interim period?” Well, the time has been spent building a studio (named Temple of Bloom) in her backyard, getting married, developing her visual art practice and her music teaching.
Back to Temple Songs; the record was written and recorded over a three-month period in late 2025, in her backyard studio, using just two microphones and a laptop, in a space measuring 10 feet by 14 feet. For the recording process, Veirs employed the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi, which finds beauty in imperfection; it resulted in Veirs choosing not to pitch-correct vocals or edit out rough edges. Veirs entrusted the mixing of the record to Philip Weinrobe, who has previously worked with Adrienne Lenker of Big Thief.
The album is titled in honour of the studio (it was originally due to be called No Masters; however, this was subject to a change of heart late in the record-making process). Because the Temple of Bloom studio wasn’t built with the intention of recording, the recording sessions were interrupted by the sound of rain, by neighbours’ conversations and other unplanned external sounds.
This won’t be the longest record in anyone’s collection, coming in at around 30 minutes; there are prog songs that last longer. Kicking off, we have Arc Still Bends, a gentle introduction to the record. While Pulse, at 3 minutes and 34 seconds in length, the longest track here and one of the singles released in advance of the album, is a real surprise, a departure from the sounds on the rest of the record; it starts off at a tempo with Veirs singing with urgency over an acoustic guitar. As the song progresses, other instruments enter the fray until it settles into an avant-garde jazz vibe, featuring the guest saxophonist and guitar sounding improvised and not dissimilar to some of the music on David Bowie’s final masterpiece, Blackstar.
Flying Into Darkness, another of the singles, is perhaps the highlight of the release; it again is relatively uptempo with a chorus featuring a memorable melody and lyrics such as “Is there a place I can go, Where I can be myself? Is there a song I’ll sing, That I’ll never sell?” Colors Sing is a short (1 minute 35) acoustic instrumental which is a pleasant interlude, before Out From Undercover, which again features saxophone, this time mainly tracing the melody. New Life Over There is about a letter including an apology that Veirs wrote but never sent. The curtain comes down on the record with Sunlight and Doom, which is very much in a traditional folk vein.
This record may mark a change of approach for the artist, yet it is unmistakably Veirs: that sweet voice, the memorable melodies, while it perhaps took courage, finding the confidence to return to making records and indeed adopting very much a do-it-yourself approach, the way it turned out makes it worthwhile.
