Wayward Vine – The Fall
Most places around the world welcome the new year on the first of January. Here in New England, and especially around Massachusetts, the calendar takes on a different kind of cadence, where the start of September and onset of autumn is the time of new beginnings. Photos of children on the first day of school mark the passage of time, the conclusion of summer and the embrace of colder months usher in a familial intimacy and closeness, and our cities and towns, flush with returning students and residents back from various vacations, suddenly come alive with activity and energy.
It’s a unique aspect of life in New England; and a time to pause, reflect, and embrace a fresh start. This sentiment swirls with a dynamic drama through Wayward Vine’s debut album The Fall, a cinematic collection of 11 songs from the indie-folk Americana band that hit the streams back in September.
But the start of another year is not without its new beginnings, and Wayward Vine celebrate the CD release of The Fall with a live showcase on Saturday, January 31 at The Square Root in Roslindale, welcoming multi-hyphenate artist and performer Molly Pinto Madigan and “Americana folk-rock mama” Erin Bonnie.
To celebrate the compact disc release of the album, the band unveils the official music video for its enchanting title track, directed by Jeff Sussman. It helps bring the cinematic vision of the band — Valerie Rachel (vocals, violin, keyboards, Hammond organ, and tambourine) and Greg Lawrence (vocals, guitar, percussion, harmonica) – and its personal brand of storytelling, to colorful life.
“Our music video for ‘The Fall’ reflects how the change of seasons can feel melancholy when you’re young, especially as the world shifts around you and feels both mundane and unstable at the same time,” says Rachel. “We hoped the video would feel like a recollection, using the fall’s naturally vivid colors and quiet beauty, to represent how a young girl copes with a difficult time using the world around her and particularly, the joy of playing in her backyard. We hope viewers will connect with the song’s message of strength coming from connections to family, nature, and oneself.”
The visual for “The Fall” is the latest chapter in an overarching storyline that began more than a year ago.
Consisting of eight prior singles dating back to October 2024, including August’s spellbinding “Dancing On Your Basement Floor,” and paired with three new compositions, The Fall is a declaration of purpose from Rachel and Lawrence, a pair of songwriting partners whose delicate harmonies and gentle rhythms belie lyrical themes of heartbreak, obsession, and the panoramic range of emotions involved in family relationships.
The Fall is not just the title of the album; it’s a snapshot of life, frozen in time. And it reflects something larger for the duo, who balance day jobs, families (Rachel’s daughter, Dahlia, appears in the video), and other commitments alongside being in one of Boston’s most exciting new Americana bands.
“When you think about the moment when summer shifts to fall, for example, there is often the feeling of being at the edge of a moment when you don’t know what the next moment holds, and that’s often accompanied by melancholy, or sometimes an exciting anticipation,” says Rachel, a classically trained vocalist, violinist, and pianist. “But we also wanted to more broadly incorporate moments of change and evolution as they relate to the feeling of seasons changing.”
She adds: “In choosing The Fall for the title, more than just featuring one of the names of the tracks and a season of the year in which the album happens to be emerging, we thought this was a representation of everything the word can mean that occurs thematically in our songs. The Fall also references a loss of innocence and a shift in mental state, all in one title.”
Subtle references to seasonal themes permeate through the album, where Wayward Vine’s knack for emotionally-driven storytelling and heartfelt narration of life’s tender and most personal moments are soundtracked by a casual encompassing of sound, balancing solemnity and euphoria, that has earned comparisons to The Head and the Heart, 10,000 Maniacs, and The Civil Wars. But the sound enclosed here is purely Wayward Vine, where hook-filled melodies, well-placed harmonies, and authentic songwriting glow through the speakers like moonlight.
“We write a lot about relationships, and what inevitably accompanies relationships as a theme is change, because relationships evolve and transition,” says Lawrence, a Canadian native who hails from a family with deep roots in acoustic guitar playing, primarily in rock and folk music. “I guess I would say that there’s a parallel in this album between the changing of the seasons – as a metaphor, perhaps – and the numerous stories about relationship transitions in our songwriting.”
Wayward Vine, rounded out on the record and on stage by Yoni Gordon on electric guitar, bassist Jose Downes, and Jim St. Pierre on drums and percussion, have been generating a healthy buzz around the Boston music scene since first releasing the album’s alluring title track in late 2024. Opening the album like a warm embrace, the emotional undertow of “The Fall” sets a dramatic tone, taking Rachel back to the height of the pandemic, when the hypnotic pop-rock song first came together.
“The lyrics and theme of the song encapsulate my family’s experience around 2020 and into 2021, when time seemed to go very slowly yet everyone’s emotional experience seemed heightened,” she says. “I found a lot of solace in nature during that time, especially through hours in my backyard where I saw my kids gain a lot of resilience and even though this wasn’t the world or childhood we envisioned for them. I think the melody and lyrics of the song capture both emotional pain and suggest a hopefulness and support system that we as humans need to get through our toughest moments.”
Recorded and mixed by David Minehan at Woolly Mammoth Sound in Waltham, with additional recording, mixing and mastering by Will Holland at Chillhouse Studios in Charlestown, the rest of the album plays out in the same kind of magnetic way. There’s a push and a pull to the music of Wayward Vine, and a certain intimacy in its lyricisms that most new bands generally shy away from.
August single “Dancing On Your Basement Floor,” with its rich, textured harmonies and confessional nature, explores a moment when a relationship is either going to move into something more serious or meet its end; the upbeat piano-led “End of May” swirls around a painful breakup juxtaposed against the backdrop of a beautiful spring day where the birds are loudly singing (“The irony in that combo is palpable, to me,” Lawrence notes); and the groove-laden “Narcissist’s Disguise” finds the protagonist cutting ties in a toxic relationship.
“I see the album as a window into our emotional world – we want listeners to find their own meaning and connection in the songs rather than telling them they should feel or react a certain way when they listen,” Rachel reasons. “We also wanted to create a work that is not limited by genre or musical era – you may hear some hints of traditional folk, retro ‘90s pop, or ‘80s rock in the album but also something completely fresh and different.”
That rings true in the album’s spotlight single and closing track “Imperfect Beings,” a lush, almost orchestral guitar-rock composition about two people embracing each other’s imperfections, and musically climaxes when each person is able to see the other’s whole imperfect self and reaches a new level of connection because of those vulnerabilities.
The retro-pop stylings of “Hannah” leans into a moment of renewal after overcoming trauma, when it’s unclear if true healing can take place, and the alt-country vibe of “Turn Yourself Around” takes a wide-angle view of our current life in America; it rings especially affecting from the perspective of Lawrence.
“‘Turn Yourself Around’ is another highlight for me as it showcases our songwriting range — we don’t just write about personal relationships,” says Lawrence. “It’s about our relationship with our country. It’s about our love for it, but also our yearning for it to turn itself around from the saddening direction it’s been heading over the past few years. Also, similar to ‘Dancing’, I think the melody and instrumental arrangement perfectly match the intended mood of the song — for both, the word ‘poignant’ comes to mind.”
That term can be applied to all that Wayward Vine do. What began a few short years ago has bloomed into a creative songwriting partnership and a band with a lot to say without being preachy about it. The tales and anecdotes woven across The Fall are drawn from daily life, from the impactful to mundane, and everything else that falls in that indefinable space in between.
“We always want a listener to find their own meaning and connection to some of the human moments expressed in our songs,” says Rachel. “Also, although our songs sometimes explore the darker side of human nature (e.g., ‘Hard Way to Live’, ‘Turn Yourself Around’), there is also a hopefulness for a better future that resonates. We hope the songs make our listeners feel that they are less alone and that their inner world matters.”
Lawrence agrees, echoing the sentiment that while the songs on The Fall are fueled by real-life experiences, they are positioned in a way that invites the listener to not only come along for the journey, but also apply their own sentiment to the messaging. After all, we all have those kids on the front porch taking photos on the first day of school; we all possess feelings over the changing of the seasons and what the future may bring, and we all have relationships that sometimes need work, and sometimes floor us by how incredible and fulfilling they can be.
Being alive is about emotion. And Wayward Vine understand that all too well.
“I hope our songs make people feel something deep inside when they listen,” Lawrence concludes. “Our songwriting comes from an authentic place based on personal experiences and observations that are hopefully relatable and accessible to people …we hope the listener can relate to that experience in their own life in some way and find comfort and self-reflection in it.
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