We cannot help where we start the journey of our life’s grand purpose. For some, that’s a road we walk from birth to oblivion that never deviates down life’s many differing pathways. For John-Allison Weiss, that journey is taking it’s time navigating an endless array of crossroads, the result of a handful of years that have held many changes in Weiss’s life. The construct of change, like time itself, is inescapable. It’s how we navigate the change that defines us, it’s what Weiss is pondering with their first album in 7 years, The Long Way.

Lead single, “Feels Like Hell”, co-written with Jenny Owen Youngs, a call to action by way of a persistent rhythm leading to a chorus that explodes with reverent energy while Weiss bellows “inside out I’m not myself, call this love it feels like hell”.

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Over 11 songs, Weiss embraces the spirit of rebirth born of change, the opportunity to sit perfectly still with oneself and enquire to the deepest needs of your spirit. We are so rarely afforded the opportunity of introspection and rarer still equipped to process what information we find, but on The Long Way Weiss deftly manages to channel deep change into exultant arrival.

The Long Way is a path we find ourselves on that we can only trust where it leads, what matters most if the feeling in the recesses of our hearts while our feet keep the beat moving ever forward. It’s a celebration of the triumph of rebirth, new beginnings, and the thrill of the unknown. We do not always need to know where we might land, trust in John-Allison Weiss that this is all worth the deviation.

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— Niko Stratis