Laura Stevenson – Late Great
Singer songwriter Laura Stevenson has long been renowned for her singular voice and intimate, exposed music, and has been cited as an important influence for some of today’s biggest indie rock darlings including Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker. Following her 2022 self-titled album, Stevenson today announces a new record, Late Great, out June 27, 2025 on lifelong collaborator Jeff Rosenstock’s Really Records.
“Laura has always had this supernatural ability to write abstract lyrics that cut straight to your heart,” says Rosenstock, continuing “but the feeling of perpetual heartbreak on this record is more pointed, universal and vulnerable than anything she’s ever done before and it hits so hard.”
Case in point is lead single ‘Honey’ which comes alongside a music video edited by Stevenson’s old friend Chris Farren.
The song draws influences from Dolly Parton and Townes Van Zandt, building from wistful, spare guitar and vocals to a shoegaze-influenced dreamscape of sparkling guitars and stacked harmonies. “I said in my mix notes (to producer John Agnello) that I wanted it to sound like a thousand angels screaming and crying,” Stevenson says of the song’s devastatingly gorgeous build and eventual release.
In the four years since the release of her last record, Stevenson has found herself in an entirely new place. Pandemic-era motherhood, a painful split, a new career path and new love have seen her rebuilding from the deepest layers of her being. Late Great sees her letting go and taking charge. “It’s a document of loss for sure,” she explains “but it also draws the map of this exciting precipice that I’m standing on. I am making my own life now. With the record, with everything, this is the first time I get to call all the shots.”
This spring sees Stevenson graduating from with her Masters in music therapy, a new career path that has held all sorts of parallels for her as she navigates the messy emotions of heartbreak and motherhood. “Music is a resource we can tap into to heal ourselves. When I started this career path a few years ago, I kind of quieted my own healing relationship to music, because I honestly didn’t have time, but this record is me getting back to it. This is me processing, and reconnecting with that part of myself and it carried me through.”
Late Great was recorded and produced with John Agnello (Kurt Vile, Sonic Youth, Hop Along) in an old church in Marlboro, New York. The album boasts numerous friends and collaborators of Stevenson’s including Sammi Niss (Laura’s longtime drummer, who also plays in Real Estate), James Richardson (on bass and guitars), Shawn Alpay (cello), Kayleigh Goldsworthy (strings), Chris Farren (of Chris Farren) on synths, Kelly Pratt (of Beirut, Arcade Fire, Father John Misty on horns), Mike Brenner (of Magnolia Electric Company/Songs Ohia on pedal steel) and Jeff Rosenstock (piano, guitar, saxophone and arrangements).
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