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Apr 09, 2025 Web Exclusive By Mark Moody

Birth, school, work, death as the story goes. Or on Florist’s follow-up to their sublime self-titled album from 2022, it’s life, light, and a winter’s chill—followed by death. These themes recur over 10 lighter than air folk-tinged tracks. Florist-in-chief Emily Sprague has herself all tangled up worrying about whether it’s okay to float through life unthinking, uncaring as the alluded to jellyfish of the the album’s title. Or should one consume themselves with worrying about the rampant misery around us. From the jump, on the album’s opener “Levitate,” Sprague contemplates, “Should anything be pleasure when suffering is everywhere?”

No doubt these are über-relevant themes at the moment, but in spite of the directness of Sprague’s lyrics, Jellywish feels more of a balm than an admonishment. With her long term cohorts along—Jonnie Baker, Rick Spataro, and Felix Walworth—their collective comfort cushions what may be going on under the surface. Not unlike the seriousness underlying Sufjan Stevens’ songs where the gravity of “That Was the Worst Christmas Ever” only becomes evident if you check the title of the song.

Musically, Jellywish follows an understated path. The adept finger picking of “Levitate” gives way to gently insistent toms on “Have Heaven,” along with Sprague’s soft playground patter of a chorus. “Have Heaven” contains what feels like the album’s mission statement: “It’s winter and the garden is dying, but the light comes through the naked trees,” à la the New Testament’s jars of clay metaphor. “Jellyfish” is as melodically buoyant as its same named creature and contains some of the found sound familiarity of the prior album, while “Sparkle Song” charms with a pattern on par with Neil Young’s “Love is a Rose,” and one of the album’s sunnier dispositions.

The album’s closer, “Gloom Designs” revisits the loss of Sprague’s mother and what’s transpired since. But, like the album’s referential title, gives way to the sense of drifting through life: “tequila soda, hallucinate, find some love, then go to sleep.” Sounds of pouring water, gunfire, and a “game over” PacMan puncturing play underneath the melody. Not unlike Florist’s other work—heavy stuff, delivered in the calmest way imaginable. (www.florist.life)

Author rating: 7/10