“Failing Hail” – Shiloh Lindsey

“Failing Hail” – Shiloh Lindsey

“Failing Hail,” languid and assured, opens with a lonesome Western vibe accentuated by Shiloh Lindsey’s reverbed alto. Additional appeal comes via some distinctive lyrics with their broken rhymes:
My demons had me awake at 2:00 am
This morning so I thought I would fool them
with some nicer thoughts tell myself to prove it
and this is what I came up with “Came up with” doesn’t remotely rhyme with “to prove it” and yet they seem like just the words to say, especially the way that Lindsey says them. Now I’m fully on board.

And the real hook is yet to come. Lindsey’s hidden weapon is her vocal range; when the chorus arrives she’s an octave higher than where the verse was happening. The supporting chords feel like a mini-revelation, first at the chorus’s opening (“The bad times”, 0:50) and then even more so when the run-on lyrics build the melody back to that same note (“remember”, 1:00). It’s impressive what one well-placed chord or two can do to lift a song to another level.

Shiloh Lindsey is a Canadian singer/songwriter based in Vancouver, B.C. She was raised in Alberta and also lived for a while in the Maritimes. She’s been recording since 2005, but her new album, The Western Veil, is her first release since a dreadful motorcycle accident she had in 2024. “Failing Hail” is the first available track from the new album, which is coming out in November, to be available via Bandcamp.