Liz Lawrence confronts tragedy on upcoming album, Vespers

The four singles are meant to be listened to together as an entry point for Vespers, an album dedicated to Lawrence's sister Jessie, who died following a serious accident in 2024. "What followed was the most profoundly altering period of my life," Lawrence says. "I learned about the beauty of the dying, the resilience of the living and the infinite fountain of love that sustains us."

Lawrence has released "Black Ulysses" with an accompanying music video, while "Where Did You Go", "Sister", and "Mt. Nephin" are also accompanied by visualisers.

Vespers was written across three weeks in short spurts, six months after Jessie's death, following a period in which Lawrence couldn't listen to music herself. The album follows Lawrence's previous albums Peanuts, The Avalanche, Pity Party and Bedroom Hero, and mark a point of change for the singer-songwriter. "If you want to understand the change in me, from the person who made Peanuts to the person who wrote Vespers, then this is it. Grief changes you. I don't recognise the person I was before," she says.

Speaking about the album, which Lawrence recorded and produced herself in summer 2025 at Vada Studios in Worcestershire, she explains: "The album is very specifically about my sister and my family's situation, but equally, that is universal. It is bewildering to me that grief and death, which happen to literally all of us, are still something we keep locked away. There's no room for it. You have to create that, and most people don't know what to do with it, even when they've gone through it themselves."

"I wanted someone to be able to say to a friend who is grieving that they should listen to Vespers," she adds. "I want people to come to this record. I want people to use this record. I want it to have purpose, to give comfort and catharsis.”

Vespers artwork

Vespers tracklist

"Mt. Nephin"
"Where Did You Go"
"Black Ulysses"
"Sister"
"Three Legged Dog"
"Yves Blue"
"A Good One"
"Heaven Didn’t Need Another Angel"
"May Queen"
"Exploded Into Flowers"
"Birthday Party"
"Thank God For You"
"(coda)"