Suzanne Santo

S uzanne Santo has never been afraid to blur the lines. A tireless creator, she's built her sound in the grey area between Americana, Southern-gothic soul, and forward-thinking rock & roll. It's a sound that nods to her past — a childhood spent in the Rust Belt; a decade logged as a member of the L.A.-based duo HoneyHoney; the acclaimed solo album, Ruby Red , that launched a new phase of her career in 2017; and the world tour that took her from Greece to Glastonbury as a member of Hozier's band — while still exploring new territory. With 2022's Yard Sale , Santo boldly moved forward, staking her claim once again as an Americana innovator. It's an album inspired by the past, written by an artist who's only interested in the here-and-now. And for Suzanne Santo, the here-and-now sounds pretty good. Santo's new album, Sympathetic Magic expands beyond the boundaries of the Americana she became known for, infusing the bluesy, emotional resonance of her voice with electronica and multi-part harmonies to create songs that are simultaneously for this moment and also timeless. Through songs that speak to the anxiety of our times and the uncertainty of the human condition, there is an expansiveness to the panoply of emotion Santo summons through her music, touching aspects of grief, crisis, loneliness while pushing past them to locate resilience, devotion and love as a path into the light. Again and again, Santo finds relief and solace in the saving graces of love- love for a husband, for a child, for family and for all those who are lost, and the passion of her voice burns through this album like lightning on a dark sky. With lyrics that evoke everything from the individual's isolation against the crowd to transcendent experiences of God through life cycles, these songs represent an extension and expansion of everything she's done before, a maturation of artistic vision and skill.