New album The Death of Aliza Willett out now!
The Death of Aliza Willett is a Midwestern Gothic folk opera set in early 1980s Aurora, Illinois, and inspired by true events. It follows four high school seniors—Aliza (the victim), William (the failed protector), Benjamin (the helpless boyfriend), and Sarah (the best friend)—as they’re drawn into a supernatural struggle between angels and demons, heaven and hell.
Melancholic and melodramatic, the album draws inspiration from Ethel Cain’s Preacher’s Daughter, The Decemberists’ The Hazards of Love, and the ethereal storytelling of Sufjan Stevens. While rooted in folk, indie, and alternative, the sound also weaves in threads of ‘80s pop, baroque pop, classical requiem, and ultimately closes with a Swedish-language folk murder ballad. It conjures a haunting nostalgia for a 1980s Midwest that never fully existed—evoking the crisp autumns and icy winters of the upper heartland as a Northern Gothic counterpoint to the Southern Gothic tradition.
Although rich in Christian imagery—particularly Catholic—this is not a "Christian album" in any traditional sense. Its theological lens is deliberately ambiguous, open to interpretation and debate.
The album is structured in three movements, each consisting of five songs told from different character perspectives. The first movement introduces the central figures and sets the stage; the second depicts Aliza’s abduction, murder, and funeral; and the third deals with the aftermath of William’s failure to stop the antagonist, Everitt—offering a glimpse of hope ahead, even as the killer claims more lives and delivers the album’s final, chilling word.
Though The Death of Aliza Willett draws from the true history of a serial rapist and killer who terrorized Aurora and the surrounding suburbs during the 1970s and early 1980s, it is not a direct retelling or biography. Instead, it consciously distances itself from the specific crimes of Bruce Lindahl, crafting a fictional narrative that exists in dialogue with—but not dependent on—those dark realities.