SHANNON LAY - PAST THE VEIL - ALL THE BEST

Shannon Lay’s seraphic voice and fingerpicking has long been a guiding spirit — a compassionate steward of tender hearts and minds. For the last decade, her music has tendered a retreat from one’s worries, and created a refuge out of delicate and minimalist arrangements. With her new studio album, Past the Veil, she proffers the same care and understanding, and a similar emotional timbre, but from an entirely different sonic vantage point. Rather than weaving a safe cocoon in which listeners may hide out, Past the Veil rips it apart, offering a bold invitation to move through our discomfort and uncertainty. It is the sound of rebirth. It is a chance to stand up, join together, and maybe even dance.

“I wanted to make something that was a little more uplifting and really encouraging,” the Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter, 35, says. “I wanted to impart a sense of togetherness by gathering members of my creative community to channel the spirit of what wanted to be made.”

Beginning in 2024, Lay teamed up with Los Angeles recording engineer and producer Rob Shelton of Altamira Sound in Alhambra, and began writing songs on the spot, with various local musicians joining them to flesh out the tracks. Their first collaborative effort became the single “Mirrors,” a soft-rock meditation released in April that year, which positioned Lay’s voice over a rich full-band arrangement. “As soon as we finished that song, I knew I wanted that sound and feeling to compose the entire next record,” Lay says.

Over the next year, Lay allowed Shelton to help move her out of her usual minimalist frequency, and write a collection of songs that incorporated everything from drum machines to string arrangements and pedal steel guitar. Lay also sings with the might of her full range — sounding bolder and more powerful than ever before — all while maintaining her characteristic softheartedness. 

“There was all of this big, intentional production that I don’t always do,” she explains. “In the past I liked to keep things simple because keeping things simple has kept me safe so far. But I’m at a point where I want to face things with a new perspective, and not work out of fear.” The title track — its walking bassline punctuated by textural guitar and synthesizer sparkle — recalls the early 90s quiet storm of Sade, an artist Lay has long adored but had yet to reference on an album. For “The Calling,” Lay’s fertile voice soars in relief from a pop-symphonic blend of strings, keys, drums, and bass, and concludes in a vocal improvisation that draws out the singer’s ancestral brogue — like Karen Carpenter giving way to Anne Briggs. Lyrically, Past the Veil is threaded with the light, love, and mystical currents Lay so often channels, her words a salve for spiritual wounds.

Past the Veil is Lay’s most expansive album yet, an extension of the abundance mindset she chose to adopt as she navigated big changes. On top of literal and metaphorical hellfire (the Altadena and Pacific Palisades fires of January 2025; the entirety of Trump’s second term in office), Lay also decided to part ways with her previous record label in order to bet on herself. Past the Veil is the first release from her new artist-run label, All The Best, where she’ll issue her own music as well as some of her friends’. With it, she makes a concrete investment in her relationships, and hopes to build a meaningful and lasting home for the things she believes in, rather than navigate the provisional agreements that can arise at the intersection of art and commerce.

With her new album, Lay embraces Alan Watts’ idea that “The only way to make sense of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” If the only way forward is through, it follows that we must all go Past the Veil.   

- Written by Erin Osmon