Leah Senior

Though enmeshed in a town full of punk bands and indie upstarts, Leah Senior has long pushed against the Melbourne grain to embrace strains of ‘60s folk that favor fragility over fury. She’s dislodged herself from the Melbourne scene altogether for her latest album, following her muses to the seaside town of Anglesea, letting the town’s slower pace and coastal graces seep into the braces and beams of Pt. Roadknight. The album was formed among sunset hues, sleepy days, and slower paces, but also among a community beset by wealth disparity, gentrification, and the slow erosion of the past. Those elements factor into the record prominently, brushing against the calm Nick Drake / Linda Perhacs stillness of “Two Weeks,” infusing the song’s lingering lament with the slow poisoning of wealth. Both touchstones seem to guide the album, digging into the sighs and hypnotic strums of the two artists while updating their melancholy to more modern forms of friction.

While the simpler odes might favor Drake’s austerity, Senior finds her footing with embellishments here as well, looking to Fairport and Pentangle for inspiration in places, tipping towards the studious yet sanguine qualities of her English influences on the ornate arrangements of “Mothersong” and in the flutes and flights of strings on “Softly, Once Again.” Those sweeping strings thread their way throughout the album, lofting Senior’s songs like brightly colored kites on the wind. The elements have all played a part in her past, but here everything comes together to cut deeper, to soar higher, to wrap around the listener in murmuration and meditation. In a catalog of modern day gems, Pt. Roadknight stands out as a new high water mark.

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