It’s been a wild ride since we’ve last chatted with Lacey Sturm in 2021. Little did we know just how much of her sophomore album she was sharing with us at the time. It’s been a few years since the anticipations first built for Kenotic Metanoia‘s release, and not too soon, it’s out in the world to be witnessed and digested as it inspires introspection and transformation.
Watch our full interview below:
As for the album, the Flyleaf lead singer offered this project to the world as a fully independent one. This allowed the process of the music to take shape in its own time, through her hands as well as a few close friends in this side of the rock music world.
The album’s enigmatic title is drawn from two Greek words: “kenosis,” referring to a state of emptying of self, and “metanoia,” referring to deep change and altering of course. Together, Lacey Sturm says that the title captures a moment when you start to see the truth about reality that you didn’t see before. The two words together, “kenotic metanoia,” is the demand to address and respond to that truth, a call to leave one version of yourself behind.
All these songs have been for my own heart. When David sings the Psalms, a lot of the time he’s telling his soul what to do. That’s me too in this: telling my soul, singing what I know to be true.
~ Lacey Sturm
And we feel that soul within each lyric. The personal shift this album offers allows not only listeners to connect with her words, but to grow along with the struggles written within. But above all else, one theme remains throughout the album.
Beginning Kenotic Metanoia, the “Intro” features a heartbeat. That theme rings through the album as Lacey Sturm breaks down the relationship of different forms of love – Agape, Eros, Storge, and Philia. We can go back to our interview for a moment as she breaks these concepts down for us.
Throughout the album, Lacey Sturm continues to take us through a journey of processing all that’s happening in the world, and all that’s happening from within as someone who loves and loves so large that it hurts. You can feel this early on in her career throughout her participation in Billboard hit with Flyleaf’s “All Around Me.”
As the lyrics wrestle and struggle through the album, there’s a continual display of transition, growth, and spiritual surrender in songs such as “Not Your Fight”, and “Wonderful,” just as it contrasts the state of finding strength and power in one’s identity in “State of Me,” “The Decree,” and “Reconcile.”
The songs found on Kenotic Metanoia show the full range of both Lacey’s songwriting and vocals skills, fittingly for one of the most lauded voices in hard rock. Her distinctive scorching vocal tones combine with husband Josh Sturm’s broiling guitar riffs. The result is an album that promises to deliver on consistently heating fan hype.
Practically nonstop, Kenotic Metanoia has been in my listening list since its release, and through listening, breakthroughs in my life have unfolded. I’ll leave the details there, but the power within the words written in this album is visceral and life-changing, and I cannot recommend it more.
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