The Beginning of After by Jennifer Castle

But her work helped: Castle wrote and recorded Angels of Death in a converted 150-year-old farmer church. It took time to adjust to her new home, where being an artist is more of a novelty than a career. She left her gardening job and the creative embrace of downtown Toronto, taking her ten-year-old son to Fort Erie, an Ontario town of just over 30,000.

Writing began Angels of Death soon after Castle had returned from touring her fourth album Pink City. The album is never entirely moribund or doleful, even in the face of utter meaninglessness: “Grim Reaper,” neat with fingerpicked notes like falling tears, is a loving testament to the act of writing as a salve against death. On lead single 'Crying Shame,' she sings: 'It's such a shame that I thought this river knew my name,' a salutary tribute to the ever-changing cosmic forces that define our lives without knowing one jot about us. The project is an exploration of mortality, a subject demanding dimension, and Castle delivers as only she can. It’s what helps keep the artist perched on the vanguard of celestial country and fantastical folk, a title she affirms once again with her fifth album Angels of Death. Like her speaking voice, Castle’s singing carries the joy of life. Her tone is bird’s eye observational yet appreciative, with a quiet resilience - it’s audible even above the griddle of sizzling bacon two foot away from the counter where we drink our coffees. “That makes you take stock of stuff.” Castle does not laugh wearily or look at me with a grim plea for sympathy, as some would. “I turned 40 when I was writing this record,” Jennifer Castle tells me soon after we meet in a Toronto diner about as long, wide, and old as a school bus.

The Beginning of After by Jennifer Castle