Kevin Bronson on June 1st, 2022

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Singer-songwriter Lauren Ruth Ward — she of the summoner’s singing voice, firecracker stage presence, kaleidoscopic fashion sense and fanbase that’s made her the “Queen of Echo Park” — has a new single out.

It’s titled “Messiah” and it’s her first of 2022, following a year during which she released a collaboration with SWIMM and three other singles — “The Break Up Song,” “Pain” and “Sing in the Shower,” in that order — that felt like a timeline of a relationship’s end and the start of a healing process.

On her new chugging rocker, Ward sculpts every line of her heady lyrics as she imagines a non-patriarchal messiah with a flock for whom the traditional identifiers do not matter: “In her power, the Divine feminine / Depictions blend, women, gentlemen / Mind creates safe space adrenaline / All body, no gender, essence is medicine,” she sings.

In you know Ward from her explosive live performances or her albums (2018’s “Well, Hell” and 2020’s “Vol. II”), you know the dynamite that is her voice. On “Messiah,” though, she less a belter and more a melter.

||| Stream: “Messiah”

||| Also: Watch the videos for “The Break Up Song” and “Sing in the Shower”

||| Live: Lauren Ruth Ward, along with BIIANCO and Marieme, plays the Troubadour on Sunday night as part of Fan Girl Café and the city of West Hollywood’s WeHo Pride celebration. Tickets.

||| Previously: “You Never Fake It” (with SWIMM), Quarantunes, “Feel Better,” Live at Echo Park Rising 2019, live at Love You Down III, “Sentimental Porno,” “True Romance,” “Speak Politely,” “First Time,” “Man’s Man”