With a nostalgic rock sound, a phenomenally touching performance, and aching memories provoking, Shannon Hawley is stirring hearts by illustrating loss in a soulful manner and highlighting the “mercy” that comes within.
“Mercy” is the US-based singer-songwriter Shannon Hawley’s second single from the album “STARTHROWERS. It’s a heartbreaking and heartwarming memoir song that reminds us of loved ones who left us too soon in life, while also giving us hope that we’re allowed to grieve and shrivel, but that we will carry on and flourish again.
Hawley’s poignant, dulcet vocals and some gentle chords set the song’s opening. It’s not a mellow rock ballad, though; the song progresses with ferocious instrumentation and impassioned vocal delivery that are warm and potent enough to generate a ball of light that penetrates the deepest parts of one’s soul.
The fact that Hawley based the song’s lyrical content on her own life story and the deaths of her father and grandmother lends the song an air of sincerity and makes the listener easily moved. Hector Gundlach not only provided a polished production, with the single’s sonic landscape saturated in 90s influences and each element adding a profound addition, but he also co-sang with Hawley to make the storytelling more authentic and vulnerable and to provide the ideal mashing of male and female vocal harmonies.
The message of the song exhorts listeners to sympathize with one another’s plight, soften through hardship, and show mercy to one another. This idea was expressed musically in a bittersweet way, with each instrument singing sentimentally with the intense dual voices, while the melody carries grace and dynamism in its layers.
The full album will be released in March, so get ready for it! I personally want to know how Shannon Hawley will inspire the world with her stories and ethereal singing in this album.
