Video: Blake Hazard, ‘Before the Ice’

Kevin Bronson on October 13th, 2017

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On Nov. 3, Blake Hazard releases her first solo album since 2013, closing the book on an up-and-down period during which she: 1) released the break-up collection “The Eleanor Islands”; 2) battled malaise and ended up not touring behind it; 3) worked as guest vocalist for other artists; 4) met somebody new and moved to Istanbul for a year; 5) saw that relationship end and returned to L.A.; and 6) got the songwriting bug again.

Hazard makes glass-half-full pop songs — on the surface, spry, sunny things that make you think she’s allergic to frowns — and her new album “Possibilities at Sea” is full of them. Behind the bright vocals and nimble (and on this album, horn-accented) arrangements, though, lies Hazard’s delicate dance between hope and despair. Her affairs of the heart have been an open book since the first of three albums she made with Jack Dragonetti as the Submarines. And here she is again, dissecting them in plain view.

The new album, made with producer Thom Monahan, has more of a retro chanteuse vibe. “I’ve never felt simultaneously more calm and more excited as I have while recording these singles,” Hazard says. “I’d been in such a place of sadness and loss and came out of it wanting to help everyone else through whatever hard times they might be going through. It might sound silly, but, I wanted to be that voice you need to hear telling you everything’s going to be OK. I believe in you, and you will always be loved.”

||| Watch: The video for “Before the Ice”