Deau Eyes Announces Sophomore Album 'Legacies' & Shares 'Moscow in the Spring'

Deau Eyes (aka Richmond, VA artist Ali Thibodeau) has announced her anticipated sophomore album Legacies: an exploration of what it means to "leave things behind that have integrity and meaning" recorded between Thibodeau's closet and the respective studios of co-producers Scott Lane and DJ Harrison.

Legacies began with album standout "Moscow in the Spring," which is out this week as an early single alongside a music video directed by Thibodeau's brother, Michael Thibodeau. Under The Radar is premiering the video today, saying, "Thibodeau's vocals are tailor-made for sprawling, cinematic pop productions, bringing the song's emotive core to majestic heights. Thibodeau soundtracks her path of self-discovery with pure alt pop bliss, a powerful meditation on the adventure found in owning your own independence and legacy."

When one of her exes called her up asking if she wanted to go to Moscow with him in a couple of years and hop on a train to Beijing, part of Thibodeau loved the idea, but an older, wiser part knew that wasn't her anymore. "There's this whole thing with investing in yourself and moving forward with yourself and what you've built that you can't just pick up in two years out of the blue when this guy calls and says, 'Hey, I'm going to Moscow,'" Thibodeau explains.

She goes on to add, "'Moscow [in the Spring'] is waking up to myself and the bigger picture of making a mark in this lifetime. Moving forward with integrity and honoring what I feel/say over being an escape for someone else. Looking around at how we avoid things at home and how we escape to avoid them. It's a cautionary tale about romantic love, hunger, and weathering the shame and expectations impressed upon us as women for the sake of self-preservation."

Thibodeau started recording Legacies not long after lending vocals for McKinley Dixon's "Twist My Hair," the closing track on the Richmond rapper's excellent new LP, For My Mama And Anyone Who Look Like Her. The 10-song set came together with more intention than the flash-bang intensity of Deau Eyes' 2020 debut, Let It Leave, which was taped in a matter of days with longtime friends Jacob Blizard and Collin Pastore (known for their work with Lucy Dacus, illuminati hotties, and Julien Baker).

Over the course of four months, Thibodeau spent her days waitressing, then would rush over to Lane's studio to craft the sounds of Legacies deep into the night. The result is an undeniably cinematic record, informed by her love of artists from Brandi Carlile to Emily King to Fiona Apple.

Compared to the urgent rock of Let It Leave, Thibodeau explores even more sonic textures and shows off her skill at blending genres without losing continuity. She melds indie rock and bluesy guitar on "When," a previously released single praised by FLOOD Magazine for Thibodeau's "transcendent" vocals atop "sleek, shuffling drums and a rubbery blues riff...whispery synths and beckoning flutes."

She serves up bedroom-eyes R&B on "Make Some Time" - where DJ Harrison's production influence is perhaps most apparent - grooving along to Lane's funky guitar and languorously singing, "So make some time for me / that's all I'm asking you." While the introductory track "Someday I" features Thibodeau's voice in the forefront, fuzzy and lo-fi, as if you've accidentally tuned a radio to some secret station.

"Like the Legends All Have Spoken Of" swirls with ominous, heady instrumentation and grand notions of a love worthy of all those epic love songs. Her echoing voice and reverberating guitar carve out a sweeping aural landscape, conjuring up striking images of Thibodeau on the edge of a cliff, or in an abandoned city, alone but still determined to find human connection. She evokes Loner-era Caroline Rose on "Let's Call It Safer Love," buoyed by crunchy guitar and a carefree, almost beachy sound that makes "toxic yet intoxicating love" sound deceptively serene.

Inspired by a fleeting fling with a fboy, "Another One Comes Around" picks up the pace with raucous, boot-stomping Americana. Thibodeau playfully tells the story of discovering a man was two-timing her like she's the heroine of a Loretta Lynn or Emmylou Harris song, steeped in righteous anger, but always with a wink.

Legacies' decent begins with "ENDS," Thibodeau's "true love song for the apocalypse." The stripped-back arrangement - just her and spare guitar - reflects the song's sentiment that, at the end of the world, everything else will fall away and only our shared humanity matters. And the album's arc fittingly concludes with the bittersweet title track about "dying to live for something that's bigger than you, dying to have this massive love of your life and creating that on your own, with or without a person." Thibodeau and Lane once again tap into their cinematic sensibilities, with soaring synth and triumphant keys making moments feel spacious. She imagines herself creating her own "personal love bot" to keep her company, a Wilson from Castaway made of gold.

In many ways, Legacies is about the triumph of the human desire for connection, and Deau Eyes manages to find the pain, while focusing on the beauty, of "having this last, dying love, but not having it at all."

Listen to the new single here: