Based out of Cincinnati, Ohio, Mol Sullivan appeared on these pages just last month around the release of her excellent single, Eggshells. The track was the first taster of Mol’s upcoming album, GOOSE, a record she describes as, a “long exposure photograph” of fifteen years of songwriting. While the album won’t arrive until the start of January, today Mol is premiering the latest track to be taken from it, Still Tryin’.

Discussing Still Tryin’, Mol suggests the track picks up one of the major influences on her debut album, her sobriety from alcohol since the Spring of 2018. The track serves as something of a transition, the sun-dappled happiness of a newfound, alcohol-free headspace, peppered with just a hint of the shadows of past doubt and self-reproachment, “I was a chicken shit, couldn’t even go a day, all of your peaches, just beyond reachin’, the pink-lit sky turns to grey”. That sense of impermanence runs throughout the track, that feeling that everything good came from something bad, and could go back there in an instant, “one last cigarette, and I’m out of here, a flicker of red decay. Tell me one more joke, I’ll still smile if I can, and be your personal ashtray”.

Musically, the track is a delightfully woozy affair, recalling the likes of Katy Kirby or Lomelda, as Mol’s unhurried vocals are accompanied by slow-moving slacker-tinged guitars and the slow progress of the rhythm section, which wades forward despite the resistance, like a spoon through golden syrup. It gives the track a wonderfully unhurried quality, the audio equivalent of a lazy Sunday afternoon as if it’s got nowhere to be and no one to see. The opening track on GOOSE, Still Tryin’ seems like a wonderful scene setter for the album to follow, a swirling storm of ideas and emotions, it feels beautiful yet also fragile, a balloon ready to burst and spill out messy, brilliant humanity.

Goose is out January 26th. For more information on Mol Sullivan visit https://www.molsullivan.com/