Ziemba - Unsubtle Magic (2021)

The holiday season is a horrible time to be grieving. Family gatherings and omnipresent nostalgia can amplify a loved one’s absence, becoming constant reminders of what is lost. René Kladzyk -- the songwriter, producer, vocalist and pianist behind Ziemba -- is acutely aware of that feeling. After Kladzyk’s father suffered a stroke in December 2019 and died on January 2, 2020, Christmas associations were radically and permanently transformed. Ziemba’s new full length album, Unsubtle Magic, navigates the holiday season through the lens of grief; journeying “a year and a day” from the initial loss through the following Christmas, a grim anniversary.

“Time doesn’t freeze just cuz you want it to,” Kladzyk sings on the album’s third to last track, a soaring winter anthem that doubles as a childlike tantrum, lamenting the irrefutable nature of change. “I don’t surrender to this life!” belts Kladzyk while an insistent chorus counters “all you love you’ll lose.” The music gets bigger and bigger, featuring a horn section carving out subterranean tunnels of sound, and then poof! It’s all gone. Only the piano remains with a stubbornly melancholic refrain.