‘Changing of Skies’ EP is Laura & The Ark’s Journey Through Growth and Healing

With Changing of Skies, Laura Bentley turns her attention to personal growth, pain and hard-won wisdom. Recording under the name Laura & The Ark, the Frodsham-based musician brings together this collection of five songs as a statement of intent, entrusting listeners with her deepest vulnerabilities and asking them to share in the healing process. 

The EP opens on a quietly optimistic note with Significant Ramblings, a song about trying to untangle reason out of chaos. Both the tremulous vocal and the spare, Midwestern guitar parts call to mind artists like Julien Baker or Phoebe Bridgers – and Laura & The Ark’s songwriting operates in a similar headspace, offering a place of refuge for listeners undergoing their own trials. 

Her debut single, Penance, released last August, looks back on a younger self, reflecting on past wrongs while still believing in the possibility of redemption. Swooning violin and cello instrumentation drive home the intensity of memory, as does the accompanying video which uses family holiday footage to evoke a sense of mourning for childhood innocence. Her second single Wavering Words is similarly introspective, but also reasons that after self-acceptance comes the need to make your voice heard. 

All Will Come Rising gives thanks for life’s small blessings, and makes use of soaring harmonies and an impassioned guitar solo to deliver the album’s emotional climax. Working with collaborators such as Motel Sundown’s Naomi Campbell and sound engineer Rory Ballantyne was an invigorating step for Bentley, pushing her to solidify unheard songs into full-blown, confident productions. I Didn’t Expect You To Fix Me Anyway, despite its note of resignation, sticks firmly to the idea that in order to survive, she must carve her own path. 

For all their sincerity, there’s a certain reserve to Bentley’s lyrics, which adopt metaphors and evocative imagery rather than straight-up confessionalism. Perhaps that’s because having dealt with her own demons, Bentley is presenting this work as something more outward-looking; an invitation to the listener to unburden themselves of any woes they’ve been carrying around too. While it took Bentley several years to bring her music from behind closed doors into the open, the universality of her themes is something she would like for people to find comfort in. 

“It’s a journey through love, growth, and the beauty of transformation,” Laura says of the project. “I hope it resonates with those who have loved fearlessly, fought for something real, and embraced the change.”

Changing of Skies is her tender self-portrait, a testament to the ways in which painfully-wrought inner battles can eventually lead to empowerment. It’s a record whose moments of hesitation and fragility are proof that still waters run deep, arriving at grand moments of revelation with grace and restraint.

Stream Laura & The Ark’s Changing of Skies now.

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Orla Foster