Listening to Liz Longley is like diving into a vivid dream, moody and somehow both familiar and strange. At first, the dream belongs exclusively to Longley. But as she sings what she’s trying to know––her lovers, her place, herself––her fierce candor shatters any walls that may have separated us, and the dream we’re swimming in becomes more than just Longley’s. It becomes ours.
That winning transformation of the personal into the universal plays brilliantly on Weightless, the highly anticipated follow-up to Longley’s eponymous 2015 Sugar Hill Records debut, which garnered praise from American Songwriter, Huffington Post, CMT Edge, and more.
Weightlessluxuriates in bold, thick pop with rock-and-roll edges. Crunchy, percussive guitars cushion the defiant songbird melodies Longley uses to deliver her bittersweet punches that explore the complexities and even dysfunction of relationships rather than the fairytale. “I grew up listening to music of the 90s, and this record feels more like the Sheryl Crow and Alanis Morissette in me,” Longley says. “All those powerful chick singer-songwriters I grew up loving.”
Weightlessdelivers the more everyone has been waiting for. Longley recorded the 10-song collection in Nashville with Bill Reynolds, the bassist and producer of Band of Horses as well as acclaimed projects from the Avett Brothers, Lissie, and others. Reynolds and Longley took their time in the studio, stretching the process out over three months. “It was such an amazing feeling to work with someone who was so invested in the record,” Longley says of Reynolds’ production. “Bill encouraged the exploration of different sounds and approaches until each song found its way. We never settled. Making this record was a creative process. It wasn’t made overnight.”
While the new album’s triumphant embrace of lush pop-rock marks a musical evolution for Longley, the starkly personal lyrics and clear vignettes that have defined her songwriting to date remain. “The songs I am drawn to singing every night are the ones that carry the most truth, the ones that I relate to no matter where I am in my life,” she explains. “This record is made up of those kinds of songs.”
By vulnerably digging into her own stories, Longley keeps giving the rest of us the words and melodies to share what we feel but struggle to express. “In the process of writing these songs, I felt empowered and re-focused on what is important in life,” she says. “Songwriting is the cheapest form of therapy. It helps make sense of situations and emotions that aren’t yet understood. Then the hope is that it helps someone else, cause everything feels better when you can sing about it.”