Skullcrusher Announces Second Album 'And Your Song Is Like A Circle' With Lead Single Exhale
Monday, 21 July 2025
Written by Jon Stickler
Photo: Adam Alonzo
Skullcrusher, the project of American singer-songwriter and musician Helen Ballentine, has announced her sophomore album.
The follow-up to 2022's 'Quiet The Room' is titled 'And Your Song is Like a Circle' and will arrive on October 17 via her new label home Dirty Hit.
After nearly a decade in Los Angeles, Ballentine returned to upstate New York, where she originally grew up, bringing with it a sense of dislocation, isolation, but also renewal. The project came together at home and at friends' studios, working alongside apob in Los Angeles and co-producer Isaac Eiger in New York.
To coincide with the announcement, Ballentine has shared the haunting lead single from the record, Exhale, which sets the tone showcasing her ethereal vocals underpinned by lush layered synths and strings. She said:
"Exhale is about noticing the moment when a song is first conceived. There is a part of me that wants to stop there and leave the song unfinished, before structure settles in and the song evolves. Instead, I allow it to form and accept whatever it may become. This process feels natural, like taking a pause at the top of your inhale before letting it all out. Maybe through acknowledging this process I can feel more at peace with change in general. When thoughts, words and sounds interact in a certain way they can reveal a path forward. Sometimes I want to linger before this path, in a space that feels hidden and safe, but in the end I take the path & surrender to change."
On the album as a whole, Ballentine added: "I like thinking about my work as a collection, and every time I add more to it, I’m adding a rock. Eventually it might form a circle. Each time I make something, I’m putting another line around the body of work. It feels like I’ll be trying to trace it for my whole life."
Head below to view the new song's accompanying video, directed by Adam Alonzo, alongside the record's cover art and tracklist.
'And Your Song is Like a Circle' tracklist:
1. March
2. Dragon
3. Living
4. Maelstrom
5. Changes
6. Periphery
7. Red Car
8. Exhale
9. Vessel
10. The Emptying
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