Among the Evergreens by Suzie Ungerleider – Review
By Ellie Victor
For more than 20 years, Suzie Ungerleider crafted fictionalised American folk tales under the alias Oh Susanna — poetic stories laced with brooding Gothicism, evoking the stark beauty of The Handsome Family and the dusty resonance of Gillian Welch. But with Among The Evergreens, her second album released under her own name, Ungerleider leans into a quieter kind of courage: vulnerability.
This is not a record that demands attention — it requests it, with the gentle insistence of memory itself. “I love origin stories,” Ungerleider has said, and Among The Evergreens plays like one: not just her own, but ours, too. Told in two halves — “Then” and “Now” — its 10 songs move through adolescence, romance, grief, motherhood and mortality, tracing life’s contours with a deftness that’s featherlight but deeply etched.
Opener, ‘The Prize’, is so hushed it seems almost translucent, a faded diary page held up to the sun. Here, a teenage Suzie smokes pot with “feral strays” and “runaways,” the youthful high tinged with the bittersweet knowledge of hindsight. It’s a fitting prologue — a song about edge-wearing and softening, about losing the sharpness of youth and gaining something more generous in return. “When we lose our hearts,” she sings, “we win the prize.”
Suzie Ungerleider, 2025
image: Trevor Cornish
“Weathered and expressive”
In contrast, ‘Juniper’ lifts the curtain. With chimes of 12-string guitar and Ungerleider’s trademark crystalline vocals up front, it’s a jubilant ode to young love — dedicated to her husband, drummer Cam Giroux — and the sweetness of simpler days. The instrumentation throughout Among The Evergreens is just as restrained as the stories it supports, a blend of acoustic warmth and subtle Americana flourishes shaped under the seasoned eye of producer Jim Bryson. Recorded between cedar-lined studios in Ottawa and Vancouver, the album breathes with the quiet air of the wilderness.
But if the textures are subdued, the emotions are anything but. ‘Sirens’ and ‘I’m Sorry and You’re Right’ explore the grief and rupture that can undercut even the most profound parent-child bonds. The former aches with the pain of missed connections; the latter, set to an unexpectedly light bossa nova rhythm, offers apology and forgiveness in equal measure. It’s Ungerleider at her most exposed — yet never self-pitying. Her voice, weathered and expressive, delivers sorrow with a steadiness that’s quietly devastating.
Among the album’s most striking moments is ‘Cicadas’, a luminous piece that marries teenage nostalgia with life’s darker thresholds. Here, Ungerleider sounds not just like a storyteller, but a sage. Elsewhere, ‘College Street’, co-written with Samantha Parton of The Be Good Tanyas, unspools a slow-motion reel of her past life in late-’90s Toronto — its promise and pain refracted through the lens of motherhood and illness. “Like a tree, you lost your leaves,” she sings.
“Quiet dignity”
That arboreal metaphor threads through the album. “It’s about being like a tree with all those rings around you,” she explains — each song a ring, each layer a lived experience. And none more poignant than ‘The Wilds’, a parting hymn to her daughter that closes the record with the quiet dignity of a farewell letter. “In among the evergreens of your hazel eyes,” she sings, summoning both the forested Vancouver trails of her home and the unknowable future into which her child is stepping.
There are no histrionics here, no bombast. Instead, Among The Evergreens invites you to walk slowly, to notice the rustle of branches, the hush between words, echoing The Innocence Mission’s gorgeous Midwinter Swimmers album from 2024.
In peeling back her persona, Ungerleider has clarity and compassion. It’s the sound of a storyteller coming home to herself.
More info: suzieungerleider.com
Ellie has spent over three decades dissecting riffs, rhythms, and rockstar egos, all in pursuit of the perfect review. Her music writing journey began at 12 with a glowing 10/10 diary entry for Echo and the Bunnymen, and she’s been chasing that high ever since. Armed with encyclopaedic knowledge and a soft spot for the sonically daring, Ellie will review anything that’s put in front of her – as long as it’s on vinyl.
