Toronto-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist SHEAL has found something worth saying with her sophomore LP Courage Again (out now). Writing the album over the span of several years with the constraints of being a mother and teacher, and recording most of it at eight-and-a-half months pregnant with her second child, Courage Again is deeply reflective of love, fear and motherhood. 

Courage Again is about how love makes your inner and outer world expand and how fear makes your inner and outer world contract. It’s about my experience and learnings around pushing through fear rather than running away from it, hence the title of the album. – SHEAL

The album’s newest single, “Noa’s Song,” was inspired by the birth of SHEAL’s niece and completed after the birth of her first daughter. Dedicated to all of her siblings’ children, the lyrics are about literally pushing through pain and fear while also metaphorically relating to the themes of love and fear that weave through Courage Again.