Wayward Vine – Salt
From visiting northern Vermont in the spring to exploring Cape Cod in the fall, it’s perhaps a quintessential New England experience to find solace in the off-seasons of usually busy and bustling places, far from the crowds and commotion and close to the voice in our heads and yearning of our hearts. It provides a private sanctuary in public spaces, and allows for reflection when we often need it most.
The music of Wayward Vine has a similar effect, transporting us to familiar places absorbed through our own unique emotion, and the setting of stirring new single “Salt,” set for release on Friday, October 23, provides a backdrop to allow our feelings to roam free and dominate the landscape.
Capturing a sense of longing through an atmospheric soundscape that unfolds like thoughts racing across our mind, “Salt” is the first new music from the acclaimed Boston indie folk-rock band since the release of last autumn’s debut album The Fall.
And it follows the January release of the title track’s music video, now approaching 100,000 views on YouTube, and two nominations at the 2026 Josie Music Awards, for Album of the Year – Folk/Americana (Duo/Group); and Song of the Year – Americana / Multi-Genre Infused, for “The Fall.”
“Salt” begins a new chapter for the songwriting duo of Greg Lawrence and Valerie Rachel, the lead offering to a new EP set for release in 2027. And true to Wayward Vine’s transcendent sound, the track takes us to a vacant coastal expanse, left alone as our thoughts crash amongst the waves along the shore.
“Our songwriting has always had a strong element of exploring the emotions associated with human connection and relationships, including how they evolve and in many cases, end,” says Lawrence. “‘Salt’ is a bit of a mosaic of a few relationships that started out with promise but for their own unique reasons, didn’t sustain.”
Lawrence notes that the imagery of the setting – “a broken soul walking along a cold beach pondering another failed attempt at lasting love” – was an appropriate metaphor. Opening with a hypnotic guitar line, an alternating picking pattern with a high reverb setting that creates an immediate tension, a swell of contrasting piano melody and sweeping percussion and almost militant drum march soon cradle the band’s comforting dual vocal harmony, an immediate hallmark of the Wayward Vine sound.
From there, each vocal verse from Lawrence, buoyed by a heavenly refrain of “I’m drowning” in the subtle chorus by Rachel, finds the protagonist transitioning from reflecting on what was lost, to a dark place of feeling like they can’t go on, and finally to a place of solace and acceptance.
“Salt” emerges as another rousing twirl of emotive storytelling from the band, who in their sonic approach capture the intensity of the human condition with gentle grace. It was recorded, mixed, and mastered by Will Holland at Chillhouse Studios in Charlestown, Massachusetts.
“We also spent some time thinking about how to title this song, which is a bit more of an atmospheric moment in time compared to some of the music on our first album,” says Rachel. “I liked how the title ‘Salt’ references both the peacefulness of the ocean as well as, of course, tears and pain, and how both of those can coexist in the same moment. I think the song reflects those contradictory feelings as the piano and electric guitar drift off to some gentle meanderings while the lead vocal has a bit of a hardened and troubled emotional pull. In many of our songs nature demonstrates its healing element, and ‘Salt’ takes on a similar tone.”
With Lawrence (rhythm guitar and vocals) and Rachel (keys, vocals, and violin) rounded out by Gregg Bierman (bass), Evan Hecker (lead guitar), and Jim St. Pierre (drums), as well as additional percussion by Quincy Sussman, “Salt” finds the band expanding their sound without losing their ethereal identity, crafting a mood through infectious melody and enchanting vocal harmonies.
“The desolate sound coming out of the guitar the way I was playing it quickly drew me to that image of being alone on a beach — in the cooler months when no one is around,” Lawrence adds. “Then the lyrics mostly wrote themselves, which is a songwriter’s nirvana. It felt easy to write about a failed relationship by weaving in imagery from the lonely beach setting and tying the two together.”
Like most Wayward Vine compositions, the setting is the conduit, and the emotion is the heartbeat.
“I also feel that it reflects both a sense of overwhelm and the search for peaceful moments as we let go of relationships and commitments in life that no longer serve us,” Rachel notes. “I think many of us experience these conflicting emotions at this time of year, so it seemed a great fit to release this one at this moment.”
And it sets the stage for what’s to come on the forthcoming EP, where each of the five songs has its own unique character, as Lawrence describes it, and complement each other when listened as a collective work. As “Salt” captures the emotions of a failed relationship, the remaining songs explore themes of pure love and closeness, heartbreak and redemption, infidelity and personal salvation.
Musically, the band experiments with enhanced instrumentation, explores a broader genre approach with alt-rock, roots, and gospel weaved throughout, and embraces a songwriting chemistry between Lawrence and Rachel now fully in-bloom. “Salt” even showcases some samples, pulled from the backdrop, like waves crashing on the shore and seagulls screeching overhead.
“All of our songs still come from a raw emotional place that is very much in contrast with our high-tech world, and we want to keep it that way,” Rachel says. “We usually let the mood of the song dictate the instrumentation and the genre labels rather than the other way around.”
Lawrence says a new approach to writing and arranging also informs “Salt” and the EP as a whole. Where the songs on the debut album were largely written by one member and then arranged and fine tuned with the others, the new songs prioritized spending more time together in a room workshopping ideas before calling them a Wayward Vine composition.
“Then we brought them to our other band members for further fine tuning, arranging and getting them ready to play live,” Lawrence adds. “Also, unlike The Fall, all five of our band members came into the studio for the initial tracking work over two full days. It was nice to get everyone in the same room for the recording process, which we recorded primarily through live takes, and it gave us a really gratifying result for a warm, reflective record.”
Adds Rachel: “Our music has always come from the heart, but Greg and I now have such a comfortable songwriting relationship that we can say things like, ‘hey, this song is better without verse two’, or ‘wow, I think this song needs less violin to create space’, and we realize it’s all for the goal of making the song really pop. It takes a really secure partnership with other musicians to be able to take what you wrote, something you feel very connected to, and know that your co-writer can morph it into something even better.”
And while it’s still evolving, that songwriting partnership has paid immediate dividends. Wayward Vine has quickly become a presence in the thriving New England Americana scene, taking their sounds from festivals to clubs to breweries to Porchfests around the region. And it helped bring them to Nashville at the end of the summer, attending the Josie Music Awards at the Grand Ole Opry, taking their families down with them, and soaking in the birthplace of their sound alongside a pair of nominations.
“Visiting Nashville was a ‘check off the bucket list’ event for both of us,” says Lawrence. “It was fun to dress up for the ceremony (we both planned our wardrobes with intention) and the rest of the weekend was spent with our families taking in the hustle and bustle of downtown Nashville.”
Rachel echoes the sentiment: “It was definitely such a dream come true for our little band from Boston to be acknowledged on a national level at the Josies. I also really appreciate what Tinamarie Passantino and Josie Passantino-Boone, who organized the awards, do for the independent music community. Most importantly, I was happy to show my kids, who are both budding musicians, that all of the passion, time, and effort that we have put into Wayward Vine has been meaningful, so that someday they can feel great about pursuing their passion and putting art into the world. I’m sure that when they are adults the world will need that even more than it does now.”
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