“I’ve been working on this album a long time, so it feels like it’s so overdue. If I had it my way, it would have come out two years ago. I feel like it was really written over two years ago, and then it was just kind of waiting to be done. We’ve been sitting on it for a while, and I’m just glad it’s done and it’s finally out there and people get a chance to hear it.”

The songs chosen as singles weren’t selected according to some elaborate plan. Instead, Schoolcraft and her collaborators simply followed their enthusiasm. “Crucified” immediately stood out because of its sheer intensity, while “I Wait For You To Fall” showcased the album’s more nostalgic side and “Vague” became impossible to shake once everyone involved found themselves humming it. The record itself marks a return to heavier territory after years spent exploring very different musical avenues. While the classical elements that have become synonymous with her music remain firmly in place, she felt it was finally time to embrace heavier sounds again.

“The strings, the piano, the harp, that’s always going to be there. But I haven’t done a heavy album since 2019. I did a harp album over the pandemic, I did an album on Patreon that was very trip hop and darkwave, and I was very singer-songwriter. I was just like, it’s time to do a heavy album again. We have to.”

For Schoolcraft, everything ultimately comes down to emotional connection. No matter how interesting an idea might seem on paper, if it doesn’t genuinely move her, it simply doesn’t belong.

“I have to feel something. There’s got to be a connection there. I can’t just force myself to write over music that doesn’t make me feel anything, that feels so disingenuine. So there was quite a few songs that didn’t make the cut. I got to pick out of the pot the ones that I thought were the coolest, and that’s pretty much everything that you hear on this album.”

Listeners may also notice traces of the music that shaped her youth. The late nineties and early 2000s left a lasting imprint, and Harrowing wears those influences proudly without feeling nostalgic for nostalgia’s sake.

“It was my childhood and my teen years. Of course I’m going to be bringing in sounds from the late 90s, EDM, electronica, rocktronica and nu metal. Then the early 2000s is when I was in high school and I was really into bands like A Perfect Circle, Linkin Park and Evanescence. It’s just kind of a combination of all those sounds that I think are really cool, and I infuse them into places on this album just to remind people where I come from.”

Another important piece of the puzzle came through producer Justin deBlieck, a collaboration that came about after a conversation with Chris Motionless. According to Schoolcraft, deBlieck didn’t reinvent the album, but elevated what was already there while challenging her to make difficult decisions and compromise when necessary.

“He really took what we had and amplified it. It was a lot of give and take and push and pull, but at the end of the day we made it to the finish line and I learned a lot from that process. I really did feel finally like a pop star. I feel like that experience is what pop stars like Mariah Carey and a lot of others would go through. You’ve got to fight for certain things, but you’ve also got to do a lot of compromise.”

One of the album’s most powerful moments comes in “So Alive”, featuring Krista Shipperbottom. Interestingly, guest appearances were never part of the original plan, but Schoolcraft eventually realized that the song needed a completely different voice to unlock its full potential. More importantly, bringing her friend into the song carried an emotional significance that went far beyond simply adding another vocalist.

“I felt like when I wrote this album, I also wrote a bit of it for her. Not just what I had been through, but also what she had gone through. I think this song needed that extra dynamic of another vocalist who’s completely different to me. She wrote all her lyrics and all her parts and absolutely crushed it. I was just happy that we got to bring her in and immortalize a little piece of her.”

Perhaps the most surprising revelation during the creative process was that Harrowing slowly transformed into something she had never intended it to be. What began as a collection of songs born out of anger gradually revealed itself to be a much larger story. It was only while arranging the tracklist that Schoolcraft suddenly realized she had unknowingly documented the different stages of escaping a toxic situation.

“I didn’t plan for it to be a concept album. I was just like, whatever comes out, comes out. I’m obviously upset about some things, I’m angry, I feel like I have some things to say. But when I started thinking about the track order, I was like, ‘Oh shoot, there’s way more here.’ It all kind of connected. I didn’t really realize it went from awareness to anger, to hopelessness, to pettiness and revenge, to liberation and healing.”

Despite the darkness that inspired much of the material, she never wanted the album to remain trapped there. Instead, she felt it was important to tell the entire story, including what comes after the pain.

“We all have our moments where we’re dark and we’re sad and we’re feeling like crap, but I think it would have been really silly for me to write a song like ‘Vague’ four more times just to fill up an album. I think it’s important to celebrate and write the songs after when you’ve reclaimed your power and you know who you are again and you can move on with your life. I think that’s super cool.”

Ironically, “Vague” itself proved to be the most difficult song on the record. The track captures the terrifying uncertainty that comes with knowing you have to leave something behind while having no idea what lies ahead.

“That was definitely the hardest one to work through. It’s that moment where you know you have to leave the situation, but you just don’t know how. You know what life is going to be like if you stay, but if you leave, you just don’t know what it looks like. You can’t see it, you can’t taste it, you can’t smell it, you can’t touch it. You’re just kind of stuck in your own head.”

Even now, Schoolcraft admits she still doesn’t know how she will perform some of these songs live without becoming emotional.

The album’s visual identity came together in much the same organic way. During one of those familiar late-night scrolling sessions, she stumbled upon an Alphonse Mucha artwork she had somehow never seen before. The image immediately resonated with the themes she had unknowingly been exploring.

“I was like, I can’t believe I’ve never seen this before. It was unreal. I just decided this is perfect. You kind of become your own angel of death, and you honor your old self and say goodbye, and then there’s a rebirth. I was like, yeah, this is the album cover, period. I don’t want anything else.”

That theme of rebirth would eventually extend to the album title itself. Diving into the deeper meaning behind the word “harrowing”, Schoolcraft discovered an interpretation that felt uncannily appropriate.

“I went deeper into the biblical meaning of a harrowing, and it said that the harrowing was when the angels went back down to hell to reclaim the souls that were wrongly accused of sin and claimed by Satan. I was like, I think that’s actually perfect. It feels like an evil has claimed you, and you have the right to pull yourself out of that situation and give yourself a second chance. So I was like, this is the perfect title for this album. It really, really is.”

While plans for larger touring remain difficult in the current climate, Schoolcraft already has one eye on the future. Besides preparing to bring Harrowing to the stage, she’s already looking ahead to the next chapter.

“The only thing that we really have any control over is doing another album. So we have been working on another album this year and hoping to have that out next year. That’s the hope and the plan.”

After spending years waiting to finally unleash Harrowing, it seems Lindsay Schoolcraft isn’t planning on making fans wait nearly as long for whatever comes next.

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