Lick the Spoon, Let it Soften

Lick the Spoon, Let it Soften is the second album from Lamplight, the project of Virginia-based songwriter Ian Hatcher-Williams and his band of trusted collaborators, including members of Lightning Bug and hemlock.

Where the debut took shape over several years, this record arrived quickly. Most of its songs surfaced during a song-a-day writing exercise one August, partly inspired by Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet. The album was then produced and engineered entirely in-house at a lakeside retreat in Vermont, with a follow-up session in the city that winter. The result is communal and private at once: an album about grief and a transformed understanding of love in all its forms, featuring tighter arrangements and sharper songwriting than its predecessor.

It's also unabashedly Appalachian. This isn't alt-country, but even its most textured moments carry a natural twang.