A wonderfully dreamy alternative folk album was released by Guinevere, ‘To All The Lost Souls’ is a fragile yet powerful collection of songs.
Guinevere is pulling back the curtain on her most intimate and autobiographical album, the fifteen stunning and intricate songs that make up ‘To All The Lost Souls’ take their listeners on a mesmerising journey. Soft, soothing vocals, a subtle and warm, vibrant guitar-driven sound, and ever wandering compositions make songs such as ‘Little Blue Gin’, and ‘Wintersick’ pleasures for the ears. ‘Everybody Dies’, despite its morbid title, is potentially the most vibrant on the album, and a personal favourite. On ‘A Message’ she plays most with the wide range of abilities of her vocal chords, and brings a subtly theatrical sound with beautiful background noises sung by a for me undefinable bird.
Grand harmonies join the mix on ‘Generational Fear’ and showcase the Italian-born artist’s musical and lyrical depth. She explores themes of grief, loss, mental health, and resilience. ‘To All The Lost Souls’ is a “diary of healing” as she blends subtle influences taken from folk-rock, pop, and classical music. She turns soft and emotive on ‘Sorry’ and back to theatrical on ‘The Equilibrist’. “‘The Equilibrist’ tells the story of a friend balancing on rocky terrain, a metaphor for life’s trials.” The journey that is this album alternates between the infinitely small and the infinitely large, both story-wise, and musically.
‘Be Like A Spider – She Said’ is a small cry of encouragement to Guinevere’s younger self and to all the lost souls in the here and now, “I felt compelled to write a letter to all those who felt lost like me, to those who struggle to recognise themselves, or to those we have lost”. The album’s finale, ‘Per Andrea, Per Sempre’ is a voice note from Andrea, Guinevere’s friend whose death was the driving force behind the album. She concludes, “even now, I can’t express in words what ‘Per Andrea, Per Sempre’ means to me; it has been and continues to be a collection of things: a way to process grief, the closure of a circle, a love letter, a seed of light. I think this is how he would have wanted to be remembered after all: walking in a summer dawn, among blooming wisterias, under the shimmer of a bridge, and probably with a wildflower behind his ear.”
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