On Oct. 11, 2025, Lydia the Bard released her album, “The Woods,” a 12 song folk-rock music album. The 12 songs are meant to convey a dystopian, cautionary tale of corrupt people at the top exploiting people for their own benefit and warning of an inevitable revolution through powerful and enchanting vocals.

The third song in the album, “Run,” has a mixture of heavy instrumentals with both soft and strong vocals. It’s meant to represent the endless and seemingly meaningless cycle we all fall into as we grow, a constant and frantic cycle that often requires more than what we bargained for when growing up. It’s meant to show the cycle of working, striving for and consuming without true fulfillment. 

The fourth song in the album, “Feed Us Your Girls,” has a heavy and resonating mixture of messaging, instrumentals and vocals. This song personally is a really impactful plea for empathy, awareness and action regarding violence against women. In this song, Lydia uses the mix of music to give a voice to the silenced. It has heavy vocals and instrumentals that aids in the force of the plea, loudly asking for help for those who need it.

The album’s fifth song, “Grow Up,” has soft vocals and instrumentals about the pressures of growing up. It’s about the struggle to meet the expectations of others while staying true to yourself. It shows the struggle to find yourself while also trying to meet external expectations and the journey to reclaiming the identity lost on the journey to fit the expectations of others.

The album’s eighth song, “Changeling,” has a calming melody and strong vocals, it’s meant to be a song about changing yourself to fit into other people’s expectations. It symbolizes that people will expect you to change yourself to fit what they think is normal instead of altering their view or thoughts of the world. 

The album’s tenth song, “Nothing To Say,” has calm but strong melodies and themes of imposter syndrome. It explores the fact that the singer feels inadequate, like a fraud who doesn’t realize their talent and thinks they don’t deserve their fame while desperately trying to fit in.

The album’s eleventh song, “Joan,” has lullaby-like instrumentals that get harsher as the song progresses. Inspired by Joan of Arc, it’s a song that goes after patriarchal control and the long line of women being silenced in history.

Overall, this album is a 4.5/5. The messaging and musicality created a great mix of power with enchantment for the listeners. Even if people decide not to go digging for what everything means and just listen, it is still a great album.