{"id":716750,"date":"2026-07-29T06:01:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T06:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/716750\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T06:01:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T06:01:08","slug":"shannon-lay-past-the-veil-album-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/716750\/","title":{"rendered":"Shannon Lay : Past the Veil Album Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Five years have elapsed since Shannon Lay<\/a>\u2019s last album of original songs, and in the interim, the Los Angeles musician has been studying the proverbial blade. With 2023\u2019s Covers Vol. 1<\/a>, she sought new terrain in a set of classics that some might consider untouchable: She applied her smoky, whispered-secret timbre to Elliot Smith<\/a>\u2019s \u201cAngeles\u201d and pulled the Velvet Underground<\/a>\u2019s \u201cI\u2019m Set Free\u201d from the cosmos to the meadow. She reinvented the classics, and now she\u2019s reinvented her sound, journeying from earthy folk to songs that leapfrog across influences. Past the Veil trades the intimate production and sparse instrumentation of 2021\u2019s Geist<\/a> for lush, jazzy arrangements that swerve in unexpected directions, alternately vaporous and glitchy but always arresting and immediate, the breath floating out from beneath the gauze.<\/p>\n

Lay\u2019s voice is the rope that lassoes Past the Veil, with its menagerie of influences and references, into a sense of cohesion. \u201cBring us back to reality\/Bring us back to love,\u201d she pleads on the smoky, trip-hop opener \u201cMoving.\u201d As the strings quiver like a James Bond crescendo, the song gets stereophonic, like we\u2019re being blasted deeper into the cushions of a conversation pit. Album standout \u201cThe Calling\u201d perfectly foregrounds Lay amid a Carpenters piano melody and AM radio harmonies, floating rapturously toward a key change in the back half. \u201cWhom Gods Destroy\u201d features a killer, slightly dissonant flute run. At the record\u2019s close, \u201cI Need More Water\u201d\u2019s disco beat, replete with double-claps, carves modernity into a classic groove as Lay laments hustle culture over a sonic sibling to \u201cThe Hustle.\u201d \u201cWhat if we called it success to sit around in the shade for days?,\u201d she muses over a Billy Preston piano riff.<\/p>\n

No score yet, be the first to add.<\/p>\n

Some choices stray a bit too far from the immediacy of Lay\u2019s voice and melodies, and in doing so, the sound gets muddied. The percussive electronics in \u201cRoom for Less\u201d are a jarring departure, a stuttering Massive Attack<\/a> drumbeat that feels slightly at odds with Lay\u2019s loamy alto. On \u201cSky Song,\u201d the loop and the pedal steel backgrounding her voice feel like so much static\u2014the waves crashing over the siren\u2019s song, a form of misdirection.<\/p>\n

Out of context, some of Lay\u2019s lyrics could scan as truisms. \u201cYou are more than your worst day,\u201d she sings on \u201cThe Calling.\u201d And on \u201cI Need More Water\u201d: \u201cSunshine, we\u2019ll be alright\/This space needs more of us.\u201d Spiritual philosopher Alan Watts is mentioned in Past the Veil\u2019s press release, and Lay imbues these axioms with profundity like only the best teachers can. Is that the power of belief, which comes through in her delivery, or just the way a flute\u2019s trill can sound like exploration and hope? In either case, it\u2019s easy to suspend cynicism when these songs build steadily skyward, arrangements cresting over the kind of timeless melodies Lay has long since mastered. These are songs for night drives, for incense drifting out the window, for moments when you\u2019re tired enough to hallucinate in your peripheral vision\u2014a glimpse beyond the veil of existential drag.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Five years have elapsed since Shannon Lay\u2019s last album of original songs, and in the interim, the Los…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":716751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[375,96,128,56,54,55,307],"class_list":["post-716750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-albums","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-web"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}