An ethereal mix of melodic folk, effervescent pop, and inviting choral harmonies stir throughout Give Love Away, the new album from Los Angeles-based duo The Bergamot. Also featuring the Notre Dame Children’s Choir, the album blends gentle guitar, subtle synths, and cinematic piano with uplifting, nature-inspired lyricism. Their songwriting explores growth, hope, and human connection within a deeply memorable sound.
“Love, resilience, and vision still have a place in our collective future,” says co-lead Jillian Speece, perfectly capturing the album’s luminous, heartening message of unity and compassion.
The album’s title track opens with a hazy, introspective lushness as subdued guitar strums, spacey synths, and piano ease in. “A flower planted in May / will see the sun / of an August day,” the duo’s vocals let out. The striking lyricism reflects on the cycles of life and the passage of time, blending natural imagery with the ephemeral quality of love and harmonious tendency of change. Then comes the lovely “Beauty That We See,” which caught our ears last month with its pairing of the duo’s warming vocal duet and breezy guitars with the hopeful voices of the Notre Dame Children’s Choir. Both tracks succeed in their forward-thinking brightness — whether through imagery of flowers being planted, or simply growing up — and capture the album’s overall loving ethos well.
Another standout track, “March Leaves” also invokes springtime renewal in its “life will start again, with the leaves still holding onto trees…” nature imagery. While the opener uses the process of planting flowers to showcase growth, “March Leaves” emphasizes how life continually renews itself even as it faces decline: “Leaves are still hanging around / In the spring, they see that the summer heat will bring them to the ground.” The mid-point especially consumes with its caressing vocal infusions, as the Notre Dame Children’s Choir incorporates with a serene yet triumphant feeling.
Album finale “Everyday Champions” is further exemplary of the duo’s excellent songwriting. “We are the great everyday champions,” the layers of vocals proclaim, emphasizing the power and infectiousness of self-love in a tumult-filled world. Give Love Away emerges as a luminous, heartening statement of resilience and unity, underscored by the duo’s signature blend of folk intimacy and choral grandeur.
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We discovered this release via MusoSoup.
