A flicker of light was the namesake of Lia Pappas-Kemps‘s first EP, 2024’s Gleam, but the Toronto singer-songwriter’s full-length debut Winged proves that she’s more than just a flash in the pan. The idea of depicting a new indie rock-adjacent local artist often conjures one blurry-edged, vague cipher with a pretty generic sound profile. While Pappas-Kemps is adamantly a deviation from the norm, depending on where you start with her already-chameleonic œuvre, that may or may not be immediately apparent.
The second half of Winged opens a portal that makes it undeniable. On a twisted, knotty tree trunk of a song called “Wound Up and Coiling,” Pappas-Kemps kicks the project’s mouth agape as the titular tension becomes too much…
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