A celestial love for humanity lies firmly at the foundation of Emily Steinwall’s artistry. “but, there’s beauty in the fall from grace” is the singer-songwriter-producer’s sophomore album, following her stunning 2021 debut, “Welcome to the Garden.” In the wake of the latter’s verdant exploration of wide-eyed love and cosmic belonging, its sequel fully embraces darkness; darker themes, hazier soundscapes, and riskier, even more ambitious arrangements. 

The album title is a characteristically tender reinterpretation of the biblical fall from grace into sin. Emily explains, “It’s in reference to finding peace. Spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, with the pains of living in a human incarnation. The inevitable suffering that comes with being alive and dying every day, you know?”

In the five years since “Welcome to the Garden,” a lot has changed in the world. The memory of a pandemic, the spectre of economic collapse, and a wide variety of personal turmoils fed into the making of “the fall from grace.” Emily describes the “immense challenges” that came in making the album: “I got really depressed. I think a lot of people got really depressed in the last few years. The veil has been lifted from a lot of the bullshit in the world and it’s a lot to reckon with, there is a lot to make sense and peace with in this world.”

“Soft Animal” opens the album with a gently plucked guitar arpeggio that’s hypnotic in its simplicity, slowly building into a massive art-rock symphony of concert hall proportions. “Human Anymore” is Emily’s most muscular work yet, boasting surprisingly simmering lyrics, snarled through gritted teeth over chugging guitars that come closer to hard rock than anything on her debut, all while never losing sense of the tightly controlled elegance holding the whole project together.

“Free Spirit” is the album’s 8-minute rock opera, which explores Jungian concepts of the shadow self and our society's obsession with purity and goodness. “There’s this young girl, super pure of heart, and she keeps getting like, tantalized by this dark angel inviting her into the dark, and she’s like, I can’t. And then he says, ‘You’re whole, you’re a free spirit. You can’t fear the darkness, it’s part of who you are.’”

That acceptance is a central theme of “but, there’s beauty in the fall from grace.” Emily describes the album as “an offering” to the world. “but, there’s beauty in the fall from grace” doesn’t offer escape or solutions, it firmly offers a stark reality. Not to find peace in spite of the darkness in our lives, but finding peace in sober acknowledgement of it.