Six years in the making, this is a powerful statement on recent times.
Heather Aubrey Lloyd is part of the edgy folk group ilyAIMY (I Love You And I Miss You). It was back in 2017 when Lloyd produced the gorgeous “A Message in the Mess” album. The latest offering has been in development for over six years. Starting life before the global pandemic halted the world, when the arts, and particularly music, were severely impacted, the recording suffered further setbacks. It was also a difficult time for Lloyd, as she had lost everything in the robbery at the Virginia studio, leading to an understandable loss of focus on the project. It wasn’t until January 2022 that the venture was revived and the flame was reignited.
The brilliantly titled “Panic Room With A View” is a record about anxiety, and even as engineer David Peters was finally mixing the collection, the Altadena wildfires were creeping over his hillside. As Lloyd herself exasperatedly put it, “A plague, a robbery, and a wildfire. Creating this album was like anxiety immersion therapy.” In the panic room, no one can hear you scream.
The suite begins with a haunting melody, ‘Are You Lost?’, carried along by Lloyd’s powerful vocal, which could grace any eighties power ballad. The gorgeous fretless bassline holds the song together as a crescendo is reached, culminating in a tingling end. Welcome to the room. The single ‘Hometown Hero’ poses the question “Did I get my 15 minutes – was that fame?”. Lloyd is asking herself if any of it is real, as it passed by in a whirlwind. It feels like a cathartic call rather than a story. “Hometown hero-I said it with derision. I wanted more”, sings Lloyd in verse two. Is this a self-deprecating song or one of despair at not being able to reach the heights of fame you feel you deserve?
‘To The Girl Who Shared the Siege’ begins with radio static and sirens before a violin calmly plays, and Lloyd’s acoustic guitar joins. A song of loss and fear born out of the Syrian troubles, but it could translate to other past and present conflicts. The heartbreaking lyric, “Crying in a stranger’s arms / I couldn’t even hear her name”. The second single, ‘What The Wind Takes’, continues in a similar vein to the preceding track, in that it is a plaintive guitar-led ballad inspired by the mourning of a stalled career. Lloyd feels people are rushed through grief. She brought in the harp player, Marina Roznitovsky, for this one, to give an ethereal feel to the music. However, the harp is only used for thirty seconds, but it is half a minute worth listening to.
‘Mary Gilden’ had a lovely lilt to it with a lot of swing, and may give a feeling of an old number. Lloyd imagined her lockdown marigolds swaying and singing a melody; this song about feeling stuck was born. Lloyd completes the album with what has to be one of the better titles in a while, considering the context of the entire script. ‘December 32, 2020’ sums up how many of us felt back at the end of 2020. Lloyd knew that as soon as this concept came to fruition, this would conclude the collection. The world and we as people, for this generation, will never shake off the spectre of the pandemic and all it caused. We lost people, or at least know others who did. We couldn’t be where we needed to be for our loved ones or for them to be where we needed them to be for us. Lives were on hold. “They will haunt from all corners/ Whispering from underneath the bed”. The childhood monsters are back, and this time, they are real.
Two bonus download tracks are included with the main package: ‘My Demons‘ and ‘If We Come Too Late‘, which are both slated to be singles. Where the previous release, “A Message in the Mess”, seemed hopeful, ensconced in the panic room, the view is chilling and a little dark. Keep the door open, as it may be difficult to leave.
