A RIVAL is an album about arriving in a new vantage point, and the internal battles that come along the way. Where it’s companion album DEEP ARCHER (2018) dealt with issues of departure, loss, and the journey through those states, A RIVAL addresses the coming to terms, acceptance, and revelations that come after. The “rival” along the way often turns out to have been oneself, and the place you end up can feel like a return.

In more grounded terms, A RIVAL is an album that takes on big archetypal thoughts and feelings and distills them into emotive, layered, infinitely re-listenable songs. The foundations that set the album apart are an unabashed earnesty and a unique palette of instrumentations and structures. 

Purposefully concise, the album is meant to or can be paired with DEEP ARCHER. In the age of playlists, the idea was to be able to shuffle through the songs of those two albums together and have it form a cohesive musical whole.