SYML is the solo project of Brian Fennell previously of the band Barcelona. The Day My Father Died, out today, is his third studio album. I was unaware of SYML’s music before today, or at least unaware that I was aware. He has a number of songs that have been in used in TV shows and movies that I’ve seen, but I obviously never looked into them further. They talked about this album on All Songs Considered’s New Music Friday podcast episode this morning, and I was immediately interested in hearing more. As they talked about on the podcast although he is not a Christian artist there is a lot of religious undertones to his music. Like if you removed what are clearly the references to sex from some of these songs you could totally sing many of them in any contemporary Christian church service. Like seemingly every indie rock album these days there is a song featuring Lucius. Seriously they are everything. There are also collaborations with Sara Watkins and Guy Garvey from the band Elbow. Sonically it’s a little bit all over the place in ways that I’m enjoying because it reminds me of a lot of different artists that I love. There’s a little bit of Bon Iver, some Simon and Garfunkel, and some Lord Huron. The song “Chariot”, which is the one I’m sharing reminds me of The Killers in both sound and the fact that Brandon Flowers also includes a lot or religious references in his music. It’s probably the most bombastic song on the album so not necessarily representative of the album overall, so I encourage to go check out the whole thing.