Helena Deland's "Spring Bug" Is a Warm Meditation on Coping With Our Past Lives
Helena Deland, an artful character in indie-folk, has re-emerged as a solo artist with a ruminating reflection on self-growth. “Spring Bug” is a lush landscape of oil-painted acoustic pondering, traipsing lightly through meaningful lyrics.
Deland opens the track with cyclical acoustic guitar fingerpicking, warm in tone and pensive in sound. The easy current of the guitar almost gives off the feeling of meditation, coursing through dissonant progressions. A quirky acoustic bass line joins in the second verse, nodding to the eccentric twinge in Deland’s sound.
The eloquent artist muses on serene melodies, existing somewhere between wistfulness and ease. “Spring Bug” explores the way we grow into and out of ourselves each year, and how to cope with the company of our inner ancestry. She sings, “Past lives walk by and I blush / I try leaving fast enough to outrun them.”
The accompanying music video captures Deland’s nostalgic musings perfectly, flipping through washy film grain photos for a stop-motion effect. With a slight blur in the visuals, viewers experience “Spring Bug” like the way the world looks when you’re rolling down a hill—a dreamy, euphoric experience, akin to a half-formed memory in the making.
“Spring Bug” also bears the news of a North American tour, which will be Deland’s first headline run. Along with last year’s track, “Swimmer,” this new single is Deland’s debut since her 2020 full-length album Someone New. It’s an introspective re-introduction to the artist’s delicate and wise songwriting perspective and an alluring glimpse of what’s to come for and from the artist.
Watch the "Spring Bug" video below:
