Roses, Rituals and the Radical Ordinary: In Conversation With Widowspeak

With their seventh album ‘Roses’ out tomorrow, we chat to Molly Hamilton, one half of New York duo Widowspeak

There’s a point in my conversation with Molly Hamilton where she starts talking about a plastic bin full of Beanie Babies she’s kept since childhood, each one still with its tags attached. “Did those not fulfil their purpose?” she laughs. It’s a funny comment, but it also quietly gets to the heart of Widowspeak’s new album ‘Roses‘: this idea that things preserved too carefully, untouched and pristine, somehow miss out on becoming fully alive.

‘Roses‘, the band’s seventh album, feels deeply interested in what it means to let life leave marks on you. Where its predecessor ‘The Jacket ‘was more conceptual, born out of the strange interiority of lockdown, ‘Roses‘ feels grounded in everyday ritual and routine. Hamilton and guitarist-producer Robert Earl Thomas both work jobs outside the band between records: she waitresses at a restaurant she loves, he works as a carpenter. Those rhythms of ordinary life seep into the music. “Going to work, coming home, being on the train. All of that is inspiring to me in terms of the ritual of it,” Hamilton tells me.

Though Hamilton and Thomas are a couple, ‘Roses‘ is not simply an album about romantic love. Hamilton speaks about love much more broadly: infatuations with friends, old versions of yourself, imagined futures. Some of the record was written partly towards a younger version of herself, reflecting on the strange tension between wanting to move forward while still feeling emotionally tethered to who you once were. “I guess I sometimes use a love song to talk about other feelings too.”

That openness seems tied to the way Hamilton approaches life more generally. She admits she has never really been someone with a rigid five-year plan, and that Widowspeak’s longevity emerged more naturally than strategically. Sixteen years into the band’s existence, she sounds almost surprised by the life she’s built: a baby, a marriage, a band still making records after all this time. “I don’t know if I ever really had goals as a young person,” she tells me. “So what’s nice about that is here I am just being like, well, I’m happy I guess.”

That contentment becomes one of ‘Roses‘’ quietest but most affecting themes. Rather than dramatise adulthood, Hamilton seems more interested in the small rituals that shape it: making breakfast, commuting to work, spending time with co-workers, returning home at the end of the day. There’s something refreshing about the way she speaks about creativity too.

Widowspeak has endured, she thinks, partly because neither she nor Thomas place impossible pressure on it to sustain every aspect of their identities or livelihoods. They both have other creative and practical outlets outside the band, which allows music to remain something they can continually return to with excitement rather than exhaustion. “I think if it was our only thing, it might not feel fun anymore,” she says. “I like circling back to music when I’m actually feeling inspired.”

Lead single ‘If You Change’ captures much of the album’s emotional perspective. Inspired partly by ‘The Velveteen Rabbit,‘ the song explores the fear of becoming too exposed or too messy. Hamilton describes spending much of her early twenties trying to present a carefully controlled version of herself, worried about mistakes and overly conscious of how she appeared to others. Getting older has softened that instinct. “I’m glad I had a little bit of messiness in my younger years,” she says. “You can’t keep yourself perfectly devoid of mistakes or devoid of pain.”

The album’s title track circles similar ideas. Hamilton tells me about a conversation with a friend regarding the idea of soulmates, and whether believing there is only one possible great love for each person ultimately limits us. The song became less about romance specifically and more about remaining open to possibility despite previous hurt. “The point of it should be pursuing something as if that’s a possibility,” she says, “Leaving yourself open to potential.”

‘Roses‘ was recorded at the Old Carpet Factory studio on the Greek island of Hydra during the winter off-season, and the setting seems to have shaped the album significantly. Hamilton describes the island as quiet but not lifeless: a harbour town filled with donkeys, cats, church bells and year-round residents. The studio overlooked the sea through large windows, and the band spent downtime wandering the island or eating at small local cafés.

Widowspeak have often gravitated towards destination recording environments, although some of their previous albums were also assembled gradually back home in Brooklyn between work shifts and everyday responsibilities. “It basically just eliminates distractions,” Hamilton says of recording away from home. “The records tend to be a little more holistically like a world.”

That world, on ‘Roses‘, is intentionally imperfect. Hamilton speaks fondly about leaving in cracked vocal takes or little mistakes that make performances feel more human, while Thomas often prioritises feel and personality over technical precision in his guitar parts. In an era increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence and hyper-polished production, there’s something quietly radical about that approach. Hamilton jokes that AI will probably eventually learn to artificially replicate imperfection too, but for now she finds herself drawn more and more towards live recordings and art that still visibly bears traces of human presence.

That humanity also defines the creative relationship at the centre of Widowspeak. Hamilton usually writes the initial seeds of songs alone before bringing them to Thomas, who begins imagining the sonic landscape around them. Sometimes songs emerge fully formed, sometimes they grow slowly through rehearsal and experimentation. “It’s a conversation,” she says simply. “We trust each other a lot musically.”

Sixteen years in, that trust gives Widowspeak’s music a rare sense of ease. ‘Roses‘ is an album deeply interested in intimacy, but also in patience: in allowing things to evolve naturally rather than forcing them into shape too quickly. Listening to Hamilton speak, it becomes clear that the record’s emotional core is not really about romance at all, but about resisting the instinct to protect yourself from living fully.

After all, what’s the point of keeping the tags on forever?

New album ‘Roses’ is out tomorrow.

Listen to the singles here:

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