Some songs on this week’s Ten are great because they’re fun. “Lullaby” is great because it detonates. Sour Widows — the Bay Area duo of Maia Sinaiko and Susanna Thomson — release their sophomore album Sigil today via Julia’s War, produced by Melina Duterte (Jay Som), and the track that has haunted me most this week is the one that starts like a lullaby and ends like a siren.

The structure is simple and ruthless: a sweet, melodic guitar lead lulls you into something tender, then the back half sinks its teeth in — fuzz-drenched, shrieking, metal-esque screams in the vocals, the distorted dream collapsing into a harsher nightmare. Consequence picked it for their best-songs-of-the-week list, describing exactly that arc: sweet dream turning harsh. Altrevue’s review of Sigil calls it a heartbreaker about the situation in Gaza, noting that Sinaiko — who is of Jewish heritage — wrote it, and that the vocals are “next-level.” The song arrives with an explicit artist statement on Palestinian liberation, and the album’s own credits close with “Free Palestine.”

That moral clarity is the record’s spine. Sigil — named for a dream Sinaiko had about the end of the world, “from a genocide leaving corpses decaying under the sun to psychological abuse and physical control” — is about ostensible disaster ushering in new beginnings: grief, breakup, a lost parent, a city changing under techno-fascist gentrification, all answered with defiance. The press run has been strong (Altrevue 9.5/10, “no skips”), and the singles — “Blood in the Grass” (written for Babehoven’s Maya Bon), “Lucky Star,” “Choke Chain” — all pointed here.

Sinaiko and Thomson have earned this moment the slow way: 2024’s Revival of a Friend built their name, opening for Alex G across Europe, and the duo condensed their writing this time — shorter songs, “cowboy chords,” more room for studio experimentation with Duterte at Seahorse Sounds in downtown LA.

The tour starts today too — 20 dates with Squirrel Flower from St. Louis to Chicago, hitting Phoenix’s Valley Bar on November 1st (mark it, Jaye). “Lullaby” is the track that makes the case for Sour Widows as the heaviest emotional listen of this Ten. It doesn’t flinch. Neither should you.

RATING: 4.7/5

LISTEN

https://sourwidows.bandcamp.com/album/sigil