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Feb 16, 2021 By Caleb Campbell

Toronto-based band Beams have returned, building to the release of their third full-length record Ego Death. The newest record from the psych folk group sees the band centering powerful walls of guitars around the trademark celestial harmonies of vocalists Anna Mernieks-Duffield and Heather Mazhar. Ego Death traces a story of internal reinvention, inspired by the archetype of the hero’s journey and Mernieks-Duffield’s own path of trials and recovery. Beams have now debuted the closing track from the record, “A Flower Blossomed,” premiering with Under the Radar.

“A Flower Blossomed” signals the newfound shift in the band’s instrumentals as Mernieks-Duffield moves to guitar from banjo and takes an even more central role as frontwoman. Opening on a serene guitar solo, accented by splashes of percussion, the band settles into a driving rock pace and Mernieks-Duffield and Mazhar’s trademark harmonies overlap and envelop the listener. Otherworldly spiraling melodies blossom around the band’s psychedelic textures, as the triumphant lyrics celebrate growth with touching imagery - “A flower blossomed in my dream / Rose petals collect dew / And in this moment it is mine / And it is all I see and I deserve it / And I leave it there to grow.” The elements all come together for an evocative tribute to discovering new and more loving modes of being.

Mernieks-Duffield says of the track, “This one is about a mental experience that showed me all of the creative space that’s in my brain when it’s not filled with worry and fear. I wrote this when I realized that what I think is my reality isn’t the only reality - that there’s a larger, kinder one there if I open my mind to it.” Check out the song below and watch for Ego Death out March 26th