Album Review: Last Apollo, I’ll Walk Towards You

Last Apollo’s debut album I'll Walk Towards You has taken shape over three years, growing from a collection of deeply personal love letters into a well-wrought body of songs. Written in the fallout of heartbreak, the album’s core is suspended between grief and gratitude. Its songs hold multiple truths simultaneously: what was lost, what remains, and what it means to continue loving someone after things fall apart.

Across those three years, Last Apollo – aka Lucy Rice – has quietly established herself as one of the most compelling artists on the Irish live circuit. Rice has sold out headline shows at The Grand Social and The Button Factory, where early versions of I'll Walk Towards You were performed in a special chamber arrangement.

Remarkably, much of this momentum came before a single note from the album had been released. I'll Walk Towards You arrives, then, not as a beginning, but as the culmination of a period of profound artistic and personal transformation, and a defining statement from an artist coming fully into her own.

‘Home’ opens the album with a sparse, gorgeous piano backing before introducing Rice’s vocals, which centre around the wistful refrain “Goodbye, baby blue”. The song aches with bruised nostalgia; it is haunted yet hopeful, suggesting that we are not beholden to the transgressions of the past.

‘Hummingbird’ serves up an album highlight with its uncompromising musical direction. A pummelling rock number, the track sees Rice exploring the universal truth that pain and sadness are just as temporary as happiness and joy, and that the only way through is to keep marching on.

The art of the debut is usually to define the artist’s voice and find their calling. However, the beauty of Last Apollo’s work is that it never follows only one path. At its core, I'll Walk Towards You is an album about treading the line of self-discovery and, ultimately, pushing into new territory.

8/10