REVIEW: Leah Callahan Reminds us What Music is Truly About in New Album ‘Our Lady Of The Sad Adventure’
REVIEW
REVIEW
☆ BY KATIE SLATER ☆
RELEASING HER FIFTH SOLO ALBUM TODAY—Leah Callahan is an artist with years of experience in making music. Announced back in 2024, Our Lady Of the Sad Adventure is a nine-song collection that showcases a work created with extreme thought and depth. As a breath of fresh air in the digitalised world of trending art, this album takes listeners on a real journey.
Diverse in her influences, Callahan’s previous works have often been described as an expedition through musical eras, and this release is no different. Shaping her sound, elements of new wave, synth pop, shoegaze, britpop and even surf-pop weave around each other to uniquely shape individual tracks.
The subject matter is just as varied as the musical influences, with lyrics ranging from general nostalgia to abusive power dynamics. Writing the songs in 2023, Callahan displays how much one person can think and feel across a relatively short period of time. Incredibly eloquent when discussing her writing process, she has an acute awareness of the weight behind her lyricism, explaining at length the stories behind her words.
Particularly poignant in terms of meaning, “Devil May Care” is an exceptionally important song. Told from the perspective of someone dealing with the aftermath of an abusive relationship, the lyrics perfectly capture the vulnerability and confusion that often occur during this period.
Lyrics such as “Why did i find you/ was i looking for pain” show how much self-reflection can be caused in being drawn to someone who hurts you. With victims of abuse often ending up isolated by their partners, there is a clear importance in creating space for feelings which are all too commonly experienced alone.
Underscoring Callahan’s powerful words, the music behind the album is equally strong, each track displaying a different edge to her hybrid sound. Running throughout the songs, however, is a skill for instrumental and textural layering that really demonstrates the years of experience behind her music.
Listening to the title track “Our Lady of the Sad Adventure” alongside the heavier “I Remember” demonstrates this perfectly. While the latter (a cover of Molly Drake) opens with something of a sudden punch as a heavy, hazy soundscape erupts from the outset, the former begins far dreamier, with single streams and a funky bassline. As both songs unfold into their contrasting genres, they share a common ground of textural variety, with instruments expertly weaving around each other.
In “I Remember,” the song develops through contrasting sections. While the background is often reliant on distorted guitar and moments of chordal dissonance that feel borrowed from metal, the vocals possess an almost lullaby-like quality.
Similarly, in “Our Lady Of the Sad Adventure,” the vocals often feel as though they are competing with a range of discordant instrumental lines, a battle that produces some really exciting harmonic moments. While entirely different in terms of basic sound, the tracks share a distinctly Callahan-style of writing which challenges convention.
Moving through OLOTSA, listeners are treated, track after track, to music that sounds just a little different from most contemporary releases. Whether it be the legato fiddle lines of “Irish Goodbye” or the ethereal, delay-drenched guitar parts of “Devil May Care,” Leah Callahan marks herself as a musician with an acute awareness of sonority and timbre. An artist I personally have great respect for, Our Lady Of the Sad Adventure is strikingly full of depth in an increasingly cheapened industry.
