On his latest release, a five-song effort titled Spectres, released by Red Corduroy Music, listeners will find Peay at times reflecting and at times running from something, be it an emotion that haunts him, a future that frightens him or a present that confines him.
The EP kicks off with “Run,” an up-tempo track that exemplifies the over-arching theme and is at times startling in its brutal honesty, featuring lines like, “The night is coming like a psychopath/I am familiar with its wrath.” The next track, “Afraid of the Dark,” carries a similar message of fearing the night, or more specifically the unknown, and hints at a narrator who has lost the knowledge of how to move forward alone. The somewhat unorthodox arrangement is the perfect illustration of the narrator’s feeling of detachment and confusion.
“A Study in Loneliness” shifts gears and strolls along as the de facto title track, presenting metaphorical images over piano strains and light rhythms that recall Josh Rouse and Glen Phillips. This leads into the song’s first single, “Exit Signs,” which is a more straight-forward calling out of someone who didn’t live up to a promise or an expectation, featuring the hook, “While I looked for wrong in mirrors/You looked right toward exit signs.”
The EP ends on the gentle and sometimes painfully introspective, “Grand Canyon.” This showcases Peay at his melodic and contemplative best, with a gorgeous hook that lays out an extended metaphor of life and love as a grand jigsaw puzzle – one that never gets perfectly completed.
“Spectres represents me addressing some difficult emotions as a songwriter,” Peay said. “Music can be like therapy, and this EP is a great example of that. And while the songs can be at times jarring, I think overall there is hope and progress in them as well.”