True Mountain Laurel Release Debut Album, Angel So Bad, and Share New Video for “East of Anything”
Photo: Mikaela Kautzky
True Mountain Laurel, the collaborative project of Vancouver singer-songwriters Haley Blais and Sam Lynch, has released its debut album Angel So Bad today via Birthday Cake Records.
Born from late-night harmonies, shared voice memos, and a long-standing friendship, the duo’s first full-length is a tender, dust-swept exploration of the feelings that fall through the cracks. Blais and Lynch blend poetic introspection with razor-sharp lyrical intimacy, leaning into folk traditions of fiction and storytelling rather than the raw emotional confessionalism of their solo work. The result is something softer, stranger, and wholly their own.
Accompanying the album is a new video for “East of Anything,” the pair’s first co-written song together. Described as an act of persistence in the face of creative exhaustion, the track lives in a midnight room where memory, loneliness, drunkenness, and comfort all start to bleed into one another. It is a steady flame in the face of emotional dislocation, something to focus your eyes on when you are feeling slightly outside of reality, outside of clarity, outside of where you thought you were meant to be.
“East Of Anything was our first whack at co-writing together,” explain Blais and Lynch. “This song sat in such a magical middle place between each of our songwriting and musical tendencies. We silently danced around the subject of who would get the song for a little while before we realized it belonged exactly where it was. That was the inception of True Mountain Laurel.”
Influenced by artists like Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams, and early 2000s Canadian singer-songwriters, Angel So Bad is less about genre and more about feel. Acoustic guitars, brushed drums, pedal steel, and the occasional jangly piano support lyrics that feel diaristic without being confessional, capturing the ache of growing older, the strangeness of still wanting more, and the joy of finding home in another person’s voice.
Live, the project takes on an even more intimate form without setlists or rigid arrangements. Just two friends singing the truth as they feel it that night.
With the album out now and a cross-Canada tour kicking off September 15, now is the perfect time to tap in. Watch and share the video for “East of Anything” below, then stream Angel So Bad and catch True Mountain Laurel live when they roll through Toronto at Hugh’s Room on September 22.
TRUE MOUNTAIN LAUREL TOUR DATES
9/15/2026 Emmanuel United Church, Waterloo, ON
9/16/2026 Mills Hardware, Hamilton, ON
9/17/2026 Harmony Hall, Gormley, ON
9/19/2026 4th Stage NAC, Ottawa, ON
9/20/2026 Knox Hall, Sudbury, ON
9/22/2026 Hugh's Room, Toronto, ON
9/24/2026 Pop Montreal - Le Ministere, Montreal, QC
9/28/2026 The Carleton, Halifax, NS
9/29/2026 Trailside, Charlottetown, PEI
9/30/2026 The Cap, Fredericton, NB
10/2/2026 Frolic and Folk Pub, Iona, NS
11/3/2026 Modern Love, Calgary, AB
11/4/2026 The Artesian, Regina, SK
11/5/2026 Side Stage, Winnipeg, MB
11/6/2026 Amigos, Saskatoon, SK
11/7/2026 Double Dragon, Edmonton, AB
11/8/2026 Communitea Café, Canmore, BC
11/10/2026 The Old Fire Hall Tavern, Rossland, BC
11/11/2026 The Hub on Martin, Penticton, BC
11/12/2026 Mel Lehan Hall at St. James Square, Vancouver, BC
