Melanie MacLaren – Heaven Is

Nashville’s Melanie MacLaren embarks on a new creative journey with the release of her single “Heaven Is,” out today via ToneTree.

This is the first song from a new project that was written coming out of a time in life marred by grief, illness, and the loss of family members.  The songs on this project are an ode to seeing things as they are— without mythology, without manmade glory. This song, in particular, is a reality check on the afterlife. A state of unknown that has been mythologized and wrapped in mysticism for thousands of years. Melanie removes this shrowd of mysticism with matter-of-fact lyrics like  “Sippin beer in folding chairs/ eating fruit straight off the vine/ was an atheist in college/ than I watched some family die” she sings over a lively produced and wickedly catchy melody.  The only certain thing is that death is that it is inevitable,  and according to Melanie, “ all the poetry gets sucked out of death when you witness it.”

Melanie’s lyrics have been described as “haunting yet humorous” and possessing a “sentimental cynicism” that “oozes with Gen-Z relatability.” This duality shines through in all aspects of her music— she’s a classic finger-style guitar who grew up playing classical but uses ambient beds and distorted traditional instruments to punctuate her compositions.  Melanie is a realist at her core, with a gift for language that extracts beauty from even the darkest reality and a unique ability to blend a tongue-in-cheek sensibility with timeless style.

 These new songs follow a very prolific period, including the release of her stunning debut EP Kill My Time in 2022.

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