Outline, the title of Sam Lynch’s latest album, represents unfinished business. It suggests a tension of things being unresolved: an incomplete edge-work where not all the lines had a chance to get coloured in; the tension linked to loss and grief and the empty space that is left behind. A relationship slowly fading. An understanding of yourself being rattled and your anchors coming untethered. The sudden loss of a close friend. It’s like a car driving towards the horizon—you know it’s still there, but it’s slowly fading from your view until you can’t feel its presence at all.

But Outline is also forward facing, a map or plan for where to head next. The questions left unanswered aren’t necessarily leaving a bitter taste—they feel informative and empowering and chart a course towards progress, happiness, meaning, or whatever comes next.

Throughout the tracklisting, Outline reckons with big feelings, explored by zooming in on small moments. A conversation while smoking outside a party. Lying in bed, staring at a bug-filled ceiling. A lover’s hand on the side of your face. Brushing your teeth while on the phone. A conversation in a car. Lynch paints tiny pictures about sitting with the unsavoury parts of oneself, then grappling with what to do with that information. There are no direct answers here, but the songs serve as a place to store those thoughts and feelings rather than having them circle and linger. In giving them a voice inside the sonic landscape of the album, they are given space to grow and take on new meaning—to develop clarity.

The opening track asks the question in a repeated refrain, “What are you going to do with all the life you have?” On one hand, it teems with optimism about the abundance of experiences life has to offer. But it also rings out as a sharp-toothed challenge to make the most of it all, to feel everything deeply, to explore relationships unendingly, to find purpose, meaning and ever-evolving truth inside of every moment. “Hurt” bubbles under a steady beat about a relationship in flux (“We’ve been so good at pretending that we don’t have to talk about the ending”) and “Doing My Best” builds toward a bombastic exorcism of all the voices inside your head (“I fear you see right through me, so I let the room consume me”).

All of the songs on Outline are expanded with lush textures, forming a home for Lynch’s words. There’s confident screams over down-strokes and lilting drums. There’s unbridled guitars poking out to etch feelings that can’t be contained to language. There’s up-close whispered vocals that feel like they could be coming from inside your own head. There are songs wrapped in strings, synths, woodwinds and guitars that are so delicate they feel like they could disintegrate at any moment.

Despite all the tension, self-deconstruction and dark discovery going on, you can’t help but leave Outline feeling hopeful. The album ends with the line “I’m not giving up on you,” repeated over and over like a mantra. Almost like it’s coming at you from a bunch of different places. Your friends aren’t giving up on you. Your family isn’t giving up on you. Your lovers aren’t giving up on you. You aren’t giving up on yourself. Outline may leave you uncertain, unclear and unresolved, but it doesn’t leave you empty. And it certainly doesn’t leave you alone.

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‍Outline was conceived by Sam Lynch with Sean Wharton co-producing. It grew in different places with different people over time—Kris Ulrich’s attic studio with Ulrich and Dylan MacDonald (Field Guide) mapping out early iterations of the songs, foundational recording sessions at Monarch Studios with Olivia Quan behind the board, and then additional sessions at various locations with Sam Davidson, Luca Fogale, and Josh Contant-Perdue adding extra instrumentation. Final touches were added by mix engineer Jon Anderson (Andy Shauf, Field Guide) and mastering engineer Philip Shaw Bova (Angel Olsen, Bahamas).

Sam's debut LP, Little Disappearance, released via Birthday Cake Records, propelled her onto some of the country’s biggest venue and festival stages, appearing in headlining roles and in support of artists like Men I Trust, Andy Shauf, and Faye Webster. Sam's songwriting contributions have earned her numerous awards and accolades, including the 2022 Western Canadian Music award for “Songwriter of the Year.”