On mother’s day, Toronto musician Suzanne Jarvie delivers her most fearless and expansive work to date, an album that moves like a ritual rather than a collection of songs. Rooted loosely in folk and Americana but guided by instinct, grief, and myth, these nine tracks feel excavated from the subconscious, at times equally raw, symbolic, and quietly confrontational. Jarvie’s voice, frequently praised for its clarity and emotional gravity, here takes on a darker, more commanding presence, recalling the unflinching intensity of PJ Harvey.
Much of the album unfolds around loss, motherhood, and survival without offering easy catharsis. Songs like “Honeycomb” and “Caterpillar” explore fear and despair with stark intimacy, while “Polonium” and “40%” widen the lens to political violence and addiction, respectively, grounding private anguish in collective reality. The title track bristles with rage and ecological grief, confronting male power and humanity’s broken relationship with the natural world in language that feels elemental and unsparing.
Yet mother’s day is not consumed by darkness. Hope emerges not as resolution, but as endurance. The presence of Jarvie’s daughters on backing vocals adds a quiet, generational tenderness, while “Charity” affirms the necessity of continuing to move forward with life. Unsettling, beautiful, and deeply human, mother’s day is the sound of an artist who has walked through devastation and returned with hard-earned truth, offering comfort without compromise.
