BRATTLEBORO — Low Lily is getting ready to release its second full-length album, “Angels in the Wreckage,” and tour in a new configuration.
The 14-song album from the Brattleboro-based band comes out April 21, after some delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’re kind of moving more fully into the American roots,” singer and guitarist Liz Simmons said, describing how the band is taking its sound “further along in the journey.”
Low Lily continues to prioritize original songs that connect with current issues. Another big draw is its three-part vocal harmonies.
Lissa Schneckenburger, fiddler player, amicably parted ways with the band, but the new album features four of her original songs. Low Lily’s new fiddle player Natalie Padilla recently moved from Montana to join the band.
Fans connected with Schneckenburger’s “Hope Lingers On,” recorded in 2018. Choirs have sung the song, which refers to themes such as justice, hope and peace.
Schneckenburger wrote “What’ll You Do,” which Simmons considers “a sequel of sorts” for the new album. The song deals with disproportionate police brutality against Black people.
“It’ll be interesting to see what people’s reaction is to that,” Simmons said.
Low Lily will play an album release show at the Stone Church in Brattleboro at 7 p.m. April 30. Tickets are available at stonechurchvt.com.
This tour marks the first time Low Lily will be touring as a five-piece band. Previously, the group has not brought a drummer on the road.
Stefan Amidon of Brattleboro, who also plays in The Sweetback Sisters, recorded drums on nearly all the songs on the new album. Simmons said the band thought it would be fun to bring him along and have as close of a representation of the album as possible when performing the songs live. Hazel Royer is on double bass.
Starting in Maine, the tour will take Low Lily all over the Northeast then to Pennsylvania and Ohio in early May. More shows are planned in June.
After ending another project in 2014, Simmons and her husband Flynn Cohen got Schneckenburger to join them. They had collaborated in the past.
Simmons described having “a natural connection.”
“When you collaborate with other people, your sound just kind of shapes and evolves as people bring their strengths to it,” she said. “And that’s what kind of happened with the three of us.”
With Padilla playing in the band now, Simmons said, the music has taken on “this new kind of personality that brings everything we’ve done and everything we’ve been as a band, and adds and melds onto what she brings, which is really cool.” Padilla has won fiddle championships in multiple styles, according to a news release.
Dirk Powell, a multi-instrumentalist best known for his Old Time banjo playing and based out of the Lafayette, La., area, produced the new album. He plays some instruments on the tracks.
Low Lily has garnered two number-one songs on international folk radio and two Independent Music Award wins, according to the news release. In 2018, the band released a full-length album with the two-time award-winning title track “10,000 Days Like These.”
