“There’ve been times in my life where I deferred,” says Sheilagh McNab, AKA the folk-pop singer SHEAL. “It was hard, but on this record, I really honed in on trusting my instincts. I worked at listening to my gut.” This Friday, the singer-songwriter releases her sophomore album, golden hours. SHEAL worked with producer duo Gavin Gardiner (The Wooden Sky) and James Robertson (Dwayne Gretzky), who lead the band MOONRIIVR.
“golden hours captures my journey over the past few years, of striving to be more present in my life–in my body, and in my relationships and experiences,” shares SHEAL. “In an age dominated by anxiety and the constant rush of everyday life, intentionally cultivating these moments of presence and gratitude has felt more important to me than ever. The songs on this album are in their own way, each snapshots of this journey of striving to be truly present in my life.”
Today, she shares the official video for the final single, “Belief” – watch here. ““Belief” is a reflection of my own defense mechanisms and instinctual response to pain.” shares SHEAL. The video was shot this summer during the golden hour at Balmy Beach in Toronto’s east end. “The sun was slipping away with each passing minute, and our window to capture that perfect shot was also growing smaller.” SHEAL continues, “This urgency really forced me to let go and fully immerse myself in the experience- an apt reflection of my album’s overarching theme of presence and the fleeting nature of time.”
She’ll celebrate the release with a handful of tour dates, including Toronto on November 7th and Dartmouth, NS on November 24th. All the info and details can be found below and at https://linktr.ee/SHEAL.music.
What’s The Story about golden hours album?
Those “listening to my gut” instincts have led her to a sophomore EP that’s an intimate, confident, and raw step forward from her 2022 debut Courage Again, which shares the same core elements: evocative piano, intricate feelings, and affecting honey-tinged vocals.
golden hours sees SHEAL sorting through feelings of self-doubt, detachment, and fear to continuously, habitually return to a place of pure presence. “There’s a lot going on in my brain—I can get robotic, I go through the motions,” she says. “So throughout my life there’s been this coming back down to myself, into my own body, and an awareness of what’s going on within me and my actual relationships.”
The hazy, gauzy warmth of Gardiner and Robertson’s production—the three of them made the EP at Gardiner’s studio All Day Coconut (Fiver, Rural Alberta Advantage, Jason Collett)—evokes the feeling of experiencing the actual golden hour of a day, the last hour before sunset when everything feels dreamy and romantic. “For me, it’s about accessing memory; gratitude wells up,” says SHEAL. “I’ve been obsessed with the golden hour my whole life.”
golden hours begins with a bit of irony, a track called “The End,” jaunty and hopeful, bass and guitar exchanging lines as SHEAL gently encourages the listener to let go of things that are no longer serving them to allow space for new growth. “If This is All There Is” is a full-on pandemic short story about the mundanity of life and how it’s OK as long as you have your people (in SHEAL’s case, her family and best friend). “Stay Awake,” the album’s quietest, bleakest entry, is a mostly solo elegiac piano ballad about distance and guilt, swelling like a gasp thanks to the violin of the only featured guest, Drew Jurecka.
A deep beat and snaps push the mood somewhere dark and foreboding on “Belief,” an ode to self-doubt. “All That We’ve Been Through” is golden hours’ singular full-on pop song, and the oldest of the collection. The verses have been around for more than a decade, interrogating SHEAL’s religious upbringing; the chorus came out in the studio after spending the interim years reflecting on spirituality. “When I say ‘I long to hear the whisper of your voice,’” she says, “it’s the whisper of love, of healing, of possibility, of expansion.”
The closing song, “Unravelling” is a synth-soaked slow jam SHEAL wrote in one go on a visit home to Nova Scotia. She sings of needing to hear the parts that have gone quiet, so that truths can be revealed, for new strands to emerge from the tangled ball of life, to lead her back to what’s familiar: “I’m scared to be lonely, but more scared to be wrong.”
golden hours begins with an end and ends with a beginning, and vice versa. It’s a theme, a callback, a cycle, a fate. “I want to feel it all,” says SHEAL. “I’m more curious about what it’s opening in me. There’s something really healing about going back, and re-examining everything.”
