Annabel Lee is poised to release her debut album Mother’s Hammer next month — with an album release show at the Moroccan Lounge on Mar. 25 — and to tide fans over she’s shared the heartbreaking new track “Los Angeles.” A song written about her brutal, on-again-off-again relationship with a city she braved a cross-country move to in order to pursue her dreams of making music, only to be instead treated to the absolute withering of all her hopes and means of doing just that. Today, Lee’s connection to L.A. appears much healthier. Building a following that’s attached to her alt-rock anthems and searingly emotional ballads with dire intensity.
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In “Los Angeles,” Lee details the harrowing period in 2020 during which she started to experience the dissolution of the life she’d moved to find right in front of her eyes. As the stability offered by a long-term relationship and steady job rapidly fell apart with the end of both, she found herself sleeping in her car and struggling with addiction.
The song itself wavers between the overwhelming memory of these broken moments and Lee’s earnest plea to the source of her troubles. Fueled purely by the singer/songwriter’s heart-wrenching vocals and lyricism, she addresses the city like it’s a cruel ex-lover, lamenting its treatment of her. “You’re wasting me Los Angeles,” she pleas painfully.
Desperately clinging to anyone or anything that might keep her afloat, Lee would eventually have to move back home, where she said via Instagram she spent time “licking my wounds.” She would soon move back to Los Angeles though, but it was not instantly the triumphant return she could’ve hoped for. In a marginally better position financially (i.e. a job and room of her own) but not so much mentally, the isolation she still felt ate away at her. Inspiring to pen “Los Angeles” one morning on a whim about a period in her life she says still makes her physically nauseous to think about. But one that sees Lee facing down a second round of strife and personal demons that had chased her away in the first place.
“‘Los Angeles’ is a song I wrote at my rock bottom,” Lee explained. “It’s the true story of leaving an eight-year relationship, living out of my car, escaping all the way into all of my vices, and entering the darkest mental space I’ve ever experienced. I guess it felt easy to blame the city where it all happened, but this place can really feel like it has a personal vendetta against you. It’s the feeling of that Winston Churchill quote — ‘If you’re going through hell, keep going.'”
Mother’s Hammer the new album from Annabel Lee is out Mar. 8, pre-order it here. See them at the Morrocan Lounge on Mar. 25 for their album release show.
Visit Annabel Lee on their website and Instagram to stay updated on new releases and tour announcements.
Words by Steven Ward
Listen to “Los Angeles” the new single from Annabel Lee below!
