Deanna Drudge’s debut album is a triumph over anxiety and depression
Canadian folk-rock recording artist Deanna Drudge has released a new single and video for her song “June,” which adds a touch of vocal distortion to her folk-pop sound. The song comes from her brand new album, Killing time.
The 11-track release is woven together with a lifetime of earnest experience left bare between the bars of the songs. The indie singer-songwriter hails from the Ontario farmlands but has found herself among the wooded scenery of Squamish, B.C. — a juxtaposition she says she leans on in her lyrics.
Enlisting the production talent of Kevin Ker, Deanna allowed the heaviness in her heart, brought on by anxiety and depression, to spin itself into the fabric of the record. And between her and Ker, they made Killing Time into an unmistakably honest offering full of insight into a woman’s resolve to give herself license to heal, and ultimately create.
“Some time during 2018, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue with music,” Deanna confided, but she said it was the lockdown of 2020 that changed her perspective on writing. “I knew I needed to create something… create something mostly for myself with no expectations of how it would turn out and what I would do with it after.”
She penned the tracks with simply a guitar and didn’t pressure the process, instead allowing the songs to flow from an honest place, utilizing the time it required to do it right.
“The songs evolved from a time when a decision was made to face and beat an almost decade-long struggle with anxiety, depression and self-doubt,” Deanna revealed. “Most of the songs stem from a place of introspection; acknowledging the place I had found myself in and the moments throughout the next two years of battling toward self-acceptance.”
The album leads off with her single, “June,” a folk prog-rock charming ode to unrequited interest and mustering the courage to say how she feels. Electric chords and haunting harmonies evoke the fantastical pique of 90s female alt-rock.
Though her homage to grunge is palpable, her delicate lyrics and affable acoustic plucking over lo-fi guitar riffs force her to stand out — even if she sings about being “the quiet girl in the back.”
As much a journal, as it is a laboriously concocted accomplishment years in the making, Killing Time is the LP varying generations will agree on. Deanna Drudge manages to mingle wondering with wonderment — a captivating cocktail of life and love experiences, fears and conquests mixed into music and served neat.
