Rosemary Fairweather‘s route to a second album hasn’t been easy. After the success of her 2016 debut Heavenly, the Toronto artist signed up to Universal Canada for her second release and had her album all wrapped up when she cracked her head off a brick wall and suffered Post Concussive Syndrome. “I’ve been mostly on my back staring at the ceiling for the past several months, and while I still have bouts of all of these symptoms, I am mostly struggling now with chronic migraines, vertigo, nausea, as well as persisting light and sound sensitivity. All in all, it’s been a highly traumatic and humbling experience”, she said in a statement. So the new album, Heavenly – A Second Collection of Songs, has to make its way into the world without touring or videos from its artist. Luckily, it looks like its quality can lift it over those unfortunate circumstances, as new single Once In A While attests to.
Fairweather has till now generally earned her bread as a dream-pop artist, but Once In A While instead looks to the last golden age of indie rock in the early 00s for its inspiration. With its tight, lean structure and Room On Fire-era Strokes guitars, it sounds a little like it could be a well-loved hit from that era. Fairweather takes that musical base and then imbues it with her own dreamy grace, with a vocal that drafts it into a soft, sweet window-gazing piece of alt-rock.
Once In A While is out on March 29, and Rosemary Fairweather is releasing a single a month till Heavenly – A Second Collection of Songs is out, in August on Universal Canada.