04/21/2026
On “Veils,” Vanessa Carlton continues what I have loved from “Rabbits on the Run” (2011), “Liberman” (2015), and “Love Is an Art” (2020): enjoyable production and deeply introspective lyricism. While her earlier work remains enjoyable, these albums operate on a different level. This is not a traditionally “positive” album, though there are moments of brightness, sometimes shaped by subtle electronic textures. The piano remains the central instrument, grounding many of the album’s most beautiful moments.
The album is abstract and philosophically ambitious. Rather than telling a linear story, it unfolds as a meditation on identity, love, memory, and perception: what is visible, what is hidden, and how we cope with both. The title captures the central idea: reality is never experienced directly, but through layers that distort, protect, and reshape it.
This sense of fragmentation is clear in “Unknown Driver,” where the self feels divided and partially hidden: “Something in me I can’t see like there’s a ghost in my bones.” The “unknown driver” becomes the force that compels movement whether this is understood as a higher power, an internal energy, or something beyond articulation is up to us. Identity is not stable but shifting and uncertain, echoing a core Buddhist idea: the concept of non-self, in which the “self” is constantly changing. This sense of continuity without permanence emerges in the line, “I hear the song of the sea, I remember all the words, I’m spinning in a pattern of stars, lacing my love, my life, my scars.” Love, pain, and identity do not exist separately; they form the shifting pattern we experience as the self.
Love throughout the album is both transcendent and dangerous, often shaped by illusion. In “Woke Up High,” it feels euphoric and expansive: “cosmic emotion… they can fix what is broken” and in “Agony of the Flower,” it becomes suffocating and tied to silence and sacrifice: “Holding on by holding in” and “Nobody will love me like he does… love is sacrifice.” These contrasts reflect a central Buddhist idea: attachment leads to suffering. The more tightly one clings to love or identity, the more pain it creates, especially when filtered through projection rather than reality.
Memory, too, is veiled. In “Great House,” the past becomes something almost mythic: “A small wooden house… burned to the ground.” The album suggests that we do not remember events as they were, but as they feel now, reinforcing the idea that perception is layered and incomplete. We can peel away at these layers, but it remains unclear whether we ever reach something fully stable or true.
“Strawberries in Winter” stands out as one of the album’s most powerful moments. It opens with apocalyptic imagery with “Fire in the sky, ashes in the breeze, drones cry, we fall to our knees” before turning to the ease of modern life: “nice things, the ease that it brings.” The image of strawberries, a summer fruit, appearing in winter suggests something unnatural and fragile beneath that comfort. The mood becomes quiet and suspended: “It’s quiet now… listening for the sound of something new.” This moment reflects a Buddhist sense of emptiness—not despair, but a clearing that follows the release of attachment. The “something new” hints at the possibility of transcendence.
The closing track, “Veils,” offers a sense of calm clarity. “When I’m with you all my pain turns into love” suggests transformation, while “Someday we’ll say goodbye, slip back into eternal energy” emphasizes impermanence. The line “dancing through the shadows knowing where the light is” captures the album’s final perspective: the veils are not removed, but recognized. The guiding force, ultimately, is love.
Ultimately, the album suggests that suffering arises from illusion, attachment, and misperception, while peace comes from seeing clearly and accepting what is. It reflects Buddhist ideas of impermanence and illusion alongside Stoic ideas of acceptance and emotional control, suggesting that peace comes not from changing reality, but from changing how we perceive and respond to it.
�Animal: 9
Unknown Driver: 10
Woke Up High: 8
The Mountain: 8
Great House: 10
He Was a Dancer: 8
Agony of the Flower: 10
I’m Not Dead: 10
Strawberries in Winter: 10
Veils: 10
93/100 A
