We all look to the past for ideas and inspiration. We live in a time now where nostalgia is instantaneous, so when I heard about We Are The Willows new album I was immediately on board. Picture (Portrait) is crafted around correspondence between Peter Miller’s grandparents while his grandfather was fighting in WWII. This period, the Great War and all that, is such a huge piece of history that sometimes you need to bring it down to a two-person relationship to really understand the scope of it. The Greatest Generation was also, I think, the last truly romantic generation. For most people nowadays the idea of putting pen to paper is excruciating. And love letters? Really? A “right swipe” is about as close to Cassanova as today’s males will ever get.

So yeah, I’m fully invested in this record now. I want it to do well. Taking lines out of the letters and inserting them into the lyrics is a genius move that works because Miller sings the words with the same sweet sincerity they were written.

The full album comes out November 4th. Until then you can catch them at a few shows, including a performance at Maximum Ames Fest in Ames, Iowa on September 27th