A great deal has transpired in recent years, and Lucy Isabel captures the essence of these changes in her profoundly touching new album, All The Light. There are the obvious factors: a global pandemic, political turmoil, wide-reaching tragedy. And on a personal level, Isabel has navigated five years of marriage, entry into motherhood, and the unexpected loss of her father. What results is a compelling and vulnerable sonic snapshot into Isabel’s life.
Born and raised on the coast of New Jersey, Isabel embarked on a three-month road trip after college and ultimately decided to relocate to Nashville. Upon making the move in January 2015, she jumped right in and released two EPs in two years, Along The Way and KANE. She spent the following two years touring and working diligently toward her debut album, Rambling Stranger.
Following the release of Rambling Stranger, Isabel felt both limitless and lost. “I felt like people were aware of and interested in my career in a way they hadn’t been previously, and I froze.” Unsure of what else to do, she began to tour extensively. Isabel embarked on an ambitious “31 Shows in 31 Days” tour in October 2019, and she found her footing along the way. Her confidence was short-lived, however, when the COVID-19 pandemic arrived and left everyone in fearful uncertainty.
Not one to waste time, Isabel took the opportunity to grow her family, giving birth to her first child in April 2021. Isabel credits her daughter in large part for her return to the touring scene. “Once my daughter turned a year old, she was able to travel more easily with me. It reinvigorated my love for music, and I wanted to share that love with her, so I started bringing her out on tour.”
On All The Light, Isabel reunites with Rambling Stranger producer, Jared Anderson, and the result is a stunning reflection of the growth of a professional friendship. “When Jared and I worked on Rambling Stranger, we were both in our mid-20s, and now on this project we’re in our early 30s. A lot has changed. It’s a special thing to return to a producer-artist dynamic at this point in our lives. Making a record requires vulnerability and understanding and a lot of time; I think that’s reflected in the way these songs have turned out.”
Today Glide is excited to offer an exclusive premiere of the All The Light ahead of its official release on October 11th (PRE-ORDER). All The Light leans more toward the folk side of Isabel’s folk/Americana identity, still making use of a live band feel while also incorporating a great deal of acoustic instrumentation. These 10 songs are both introspective and relatable, paying due respect to the fears that form us and the freedom of letting them go. Indeed, this a work of poignant and thoughtful Americana that truly showcases Isabel’s talent as singer-songwriter. Brimming with rich harmonies, lyrics that resonate, and infectious choruses, this is an album that warrants repeat listens and establishes Isabel as a talent to watch.
Listen to the album and read our conversation with Isabel below:
This collection of songs really works very well together. How did you decide what songs to include?
This album was a new approach for me in terms of getting the songs together. I had a creative dry spell after I released my last album, “Rambling Stranger,” and I reached a point where I kind of gave myself an ultimatum. I set up all of the business things, so to speak, about releasing new music: I talked to and picked a producer, I started hinting to fans that new music was coming, I reached out to my publicist, etc. Once I had all of that set up, I just needed to actually write the music. I think I work better under pressure to a certain extent, so that quasi-ultimatum I gave myself fostered a creative pressure cooker where everything I wrote had to be album-quality and had to be cohesive.
So you basically wrote most of these songs around the same time. What was the writing process like?
There’s only one song on the album, “A Hero’s Welcome,” that wasn’t written specifically for the album. I wrote that one very early on in my writing career. Every other song on the album was written between January 2023 and March 2024. There are four songs on the album that I finished over the course of a single weekend. Before the pandemic, I was fairly laid back about my songwriting; I would just wait for ideas to come along and take my sweet time to actually finish the writing. Going through my creative dry spell and the pandemic and becoming a mom has forced me to explore other methods of songwriting. It was a really affirming experience to realize that I could sit down and write a song I like without having to wait for a mystical muse.
How did you come up with the album title, and what does it mean to you?
The album title is a lyric pulled from one of the tracks on the album, “Where It Lies.” None of the song titles felt like a fit as an album title, so I spent an afternoon looking through lyric sheets for every song on the album. When I got to “Where It Lies,” I knew that the album title would come from that page, and it was just a matter of which lyric was the right one. In the context of the song, the phrase “all the light” is a little cutting, saying that it can be hard to see even the most obvious truth if you’re determined not to. The idea of facing reality for better or worse comes up in a few tracks, so I felt like it was a good fit for the title in that way. But the album is also about hope and perseverance, and the album title speaks to that as well. I loved that one phrase could capture those two themes.
You are a very talented lyricist and storyteller. Are there any lyrics that you really love in any of these songs? What sorts of things inspired you to tell the stories you tell in these songs?
There’s a line in “A Hero’s Welcome” that says, “Kept that promise that we had: until death do us part. But, baby, I’m still mad.” I wrote that song really early on in my writing journey, and it was the first song I ever wrote that made me feel proud. That line had a lot to do with that pride. There’s also a line in “The Right Choice” that says, “I think of all the people that I’ve loved and left behind for fear of learning something new about myself.” I’ve made mistakes, and I’ve hurt people. There are plenty of times that I wish I could take back that hurt, but I know that I can’t. And that line is really meant to acknowledge that pain. I want to take accountability for it, and I want to apologize right here and now.
The inspiration behind the stories in these songs was really a desire to fess up in a way. I’ve always written songs that felt true and were sincere. But, I think, in the past, I’ve attempted to lyrically distance myself from some of the storytelling in my songs. I wanted this album to be a little more raw.
If listeners can take away one thing from having heard this album, what do you hope that is? What do you feel are the key themes for the album overall?
My hope is that listeners walk away with a sense of peace despite the unpredictability of life. There are a lot of ways in which my life has been challenging over the last few years. But there are also a lot of ways in which it’s been beautiful. One of the key themes of the album is that none of us is in control of our experiences; we are only in control of how we respond to those experiences.
