Margaret Glaspy - Devotion (LP) - Sandstone Vinyl

Margaret Glaspy’s second album, Devotion, arrived on 27 March 2020 through ATO Records, and the timing still feels surreal. One week you’re watching tour announcements stack up, the next the world shuts its doors and this record lands like a small, steady lantern in the dark. Glaspy didn’t try to out-shout the chaos. She changed the conversation. Where Emotions and Math was all crunch and wire, Devotion trades jagged Telecaster riffs for synth pulses, drum machines and a voice that sits right up close, almost conspiratorial. It’s a pivot that a lot of artists talk about making, but she actually commits to it. The hooks are cleaner, the production sleeker, yet the writing is still full of little gut-punch turns and sly melodic traps that lodge for days.

Plenty of singers go softer when they go electronic. Glaspy goes clearer. The arrangements are stripped to essentials, which lets you hear how carefully she shapes a phrase, how one held note can tilt a lyric from defiance to tenderness. Bass lines throb like a heartbeat, handclap snares flicker, and a synth pad blooms just long enough to colour a chorus before it slips away. You can draw a line to the thoughtful pop of the early 2010s, but her sense of economy feels closer to classic songwriter craft than trend-chasing. The whole album is about choosing restraint without losing nerve.

Thematically it circles what the title promises. Not fireworks, but commitment. The way love sounds when it’s a practice, not a plot twist. That idea shows up in how the songs are built. Sections repeat with subtle changes in harmony or metre, so a chorus that first reads as sweet comfort starts to feel like resolve. She’s talked in interviews around the time of release about rebuilding her writing process and leaning on melody and rhythm as the main event. You can hear that at work. The guitar is still there, it just behaves differently. Instead of leading every moment, it flicks in as texture, a glint of steel against the warmer synth tones.

Critics noticed the shift, but what sticks two, three, ten plays in is how right it feels for her voice. She’s always had a way of sounding plainspoken and flinty at once. Here that focus gets sharper. Lines cut through the mix with a conversational ease that dares you to underestimate them. Then a harmony slips under the last word and the meaning widens. It’s the kind of record that convinces you over time rather than on first impact, which made its lockdown-era release oddly fitting. People found it at home, on headphones, and let it sink in.

If you’re crate-digging for Margaret Glaspy vinyl, Devotion is the curveball worth picking up alongside Emotions and Math and last year’s Echo the Diamond. On record the low end hits with a little more warmth and the vocals sit in a nice pocket, which suits these songs. ATO’s pressings have tended to be solid, and this one does that quiet-loud-quiet thing with proper headroom. It’s also the album that broadens the picture of who she is as a writer. Having this next to the sharper rock edges of her other work makes both sides stronger. For anyone searching Devotion vinyl or trying to buy Margaret Glaspy records online, this is the one that fills the shelf gap between early fire and later bite.

There’s a small cultural footnote to its release that feels worth remembering. Devotion came out just as touring halted. Instead of becoming road anthems, these songs lived in livestreams, radio sessions and living rooms, which may be why they feel so intimate. When live shows returned, they slotted into setlists like slow-burning favourites, the kind that pull a room in rather than blow it back. Fans who first knew her as a guitar slinger heard a different toolkit and, judging by the steady reception, stuck around for it. That’s the mark of a songwriter with trust on her side.

If you walk into a Melbourne record store and spot Margaret Glaspy albums on vinyl in the new arrivals, grab Devotion and give yourself the chance to let it unfold. It’s modern without the sheen going brittle, pop-smart without sanding off any personality. For folks in the hunt for vinyl records Australia wide, it’s a reliable mail-order spend that rewards close listening and late-night spins. Devotion might have slipped into the world quietly, but it carries the kind of calm confidence that keeps a catalogue honest.