The Huntress and Holder of Hands phoenixed from the loss of songwriter MorganEve Swain’s husband and musical partner, Dave Lamb (Brown Bird) in 2014 and has since evolved to encompass the anger, hope, despair and compassion of the greater good. Grief, after all, when shared, becomes a unifying force.

Ten years after the band’s debut album, Avalon, The Huntress and Holder of Hands returns with Babylon. As the title suggests, the collection grapples with corruption, confusion and violence but also redemption, hope, and sanctuary. Songs like “Promethean”, “Doctrine”, “Beasts We Are” and “Ritual”, ask questions of humanity—are we too late to change? Are we learning from our mistakes? Is this the world we want to leave behind? While other tracks— “Absence” and “Timbre Inaudible”—make it clear that Swain’s personal grief remains an active well.

Recorded at Providence’s Machines With Magnets and Dirt Floor Studio in Middletown CT, the album is heavier and fuller than its freshman effort, employing Swain’s cousin Matt Swain (Two Feet) on drums, as well as Death Vessel’s Joel Thibedau and Penn Sultan (Museum Legs, Last Good Tooth) on percussion and atmosphere. Christopher Sadlers returns with dynamic electric bass—alternately sludgy, distorted, driving and supportive— while Liz Isenberg and Emily Dix Thomas provide swelling layers of cello, bowed string bass and vocal harmonies. Tied together throughout with electric guitar, violin and vocal lead by MorganEve Swain, the result is a mature album full of urgency.

Babylon also features songwriting from Emily Dix Thomas with “Rocky Coast” and a fully collaborative effort with “Desert Song”, which was written and recorded as a pandemic Postal Service-style project between Swain, Isenberg, Sadlers, Dix Thomas and former bandmate Rachel Blumberg and borrows words from the late Dave Noyes (Seekonk, Rustic Overtones). Rounding out the album are the band’s live cover of Brown Bird’s “Bilgewater”, and a final appeal to our wiser, childlike selves with the at once sparce “Thunderstorm”, whose ending harkens to composer Gavin Bryar’s “Sinking of the Titanic”. Will we let this ship go down too? Will the empire fall? Or can we rewrite the story after all?

With grief as our teacher, The Huntress and Holder of Hands’ Babylon, implores us to consider our options.

EPK