With her free time at home during the COVID-19 quarantine, Kacey Johansing used her new album Year Away as an opportunity to dive into the hardships she experienced in March of 2020. The album doesn’t flow as one storyline through the tracklist, but there is a sense of warmth and familiarity while listening. 

The album represents pockets of peace and tranquility as a whole in these uncertain times. Year Away is a chance to spend around 40 minutes listening to string arrangements, piano chords and synthesizers all framing the effortless voice of Johansing. Her album has similar new-age sounds of John Caroll Kirby and pop music like Burt Bacharach. 

The dedication to her sound is very prominent throughout the tracks. “Year Away” starts with a simple piano melody that builds throughout the song, creating tension from the repeating chords. Alongside Johansing raising her octave as the song progresses, she pushes the boundaries of her voice seemingly effortlessly as she sings on.

Johansing not only has unique choices of instrumentals and the development of sound overall, but different meanings and themes that make a listener remember her work, enhancing the want to continue listening. “Not the Same” allows us to dive into the mindset of others making situations about themselves instead of taking the time to listen to the person speaking. 

The repetition of the line “It’s not the same” in the song represents the constant efforts to try and get the person to understand that there is no comparison. At the end of the song it changes to “I’m not the same,” meaning she isn’t the same as them or maybe she has changed on her own.

“Daffodils” was the inspiration for the entire album and set the path for the musicality of Year Away. After learning that a close friend of hers passed, Johansing wrote the lyrics from her own grief and found the topic of death persistent in her mind during isolation. Coming to terms with death and accepting to live life, she sings “Keep your heart open wide, you never know your time / Keep your heart wild, true flower child.”

One of the catchier songs on the track list is “Last Drop” presenting as a pop song one hundred percent within its roots. The simple strumming and the beat is similar to the classic “Island In The Sun” by Weezer. The easy-going drumming and layering of her voice bring a lightheartedness in sound compared to the lyrics.

“Last Drop” is about longing for a love that Johansing won’t take for granted, knowing that she won’t see the true value behind the relationship. The chorus goes “As if it were the last drop, and nothing ever lasts forever / As if it were the last stop, too far out to come back ever.” She knows the love is there and there’s a chance it could disappear, but she doesn’t desire the feeling enough.

Kacey Johansing is breaking down the walls of song meanings. Her ideas don’t come to mind as the first thought of a connotation for a song, but it engulfs as a reassuring tone. Using her various life events she’s encountered was an extremely creative way to approach her album Year Away, allowing her music to reach others that can relate to her experiences.