Sean Kiely - Long Live the Low
“Kiely’s songwriting is often restless, shifting between cosmic and dreamy shapes while incorporating hints of jazz, indie Americana, and light Laurel Canyon tones.” – Under The Radar
“One of those sublime and unassuming efforts that sneaks up on you until you find it won’t let go.” – No Depression
The previously released single “This Is The Year” features Juno-award winning songwriter and banjoist Kaia Kater in a folk-pop duet that’s as infectious as it is clear-eyed about the precarious state of the world at large.
“Long Live The Low” is the title track of Sean Kiely’s upcoming album of the same name (full set out 10/16/26, Multiple Logo). “This one may be the thesis of the record: a love letter to the weeds, the dry rot, the small stuff underfoot that nobody’s looking at. An acknowledgment and ode to entropy, even when it’s coming for the stuff we love. “The song started with a line toward the end of Theodore Roethke’s poem ‘Long Live The Weeds’: ‘Hope, look, create, or drink and die.’ That in turn led to ‘hope is a carrot, maybe it’s a trick,’ a clear-eyed take on the nature of hope. If the mansion on the hill gets a song, the weeds coming up through the sidewalk deserve one too. Give nature some time and it makes quick enough work of man’s best-laid plans. “We cut ‘Long Live The Low’ at Restoration Sound in Brooklyn, and there are three stars of the show in my book: Chris Morrissey (bass) carves a through-line into the song that is both grooving and fully present with the lyric. Jean Rohe (backing vocals) elevates everything she touches. And Bobby Hawk’s violins call to mind early 70’s Elton John in the best way, especially during an interlude that swells into nearly a full orchestra.” “Long Live The Low” might simultaneously be Sean Kiely’s most expansive and modest work to date: an anthem to the small, the song of the summer .. or at least the end of it.
Sean Kiely is a singer, songwriter, and guitarist from Jersey City, NJ. His music starts in folk and ends up somewhere harder to name: acoustic at its core, but restless enough to pull in americana, jazz, and whatever else the song asks for. His lyrics are patient and precise, chasing ordinary moments to conclusions that feel both surprising and inevitable. An “alt-folksonger”, present for the cosmic joke.
The new 9 song album Long Live The Low (Multiple Logo) finds Kiely backed up by an impressive group of collaborating musicians: expansive, genre-defying creative voices including Bobby Hawk (Phoebe Bridgers, Bleachers), Chris Morrissey (Norah Jones, Margaret Glaspy), Bill Campbell (Andrew Bird, Kurt Rosenwinkel), and Juno Award winning Canadian singer-songwriter and banjoist Kaia Kater. The title track “Long Live The Low” announces the album on 9/1/26. It’s an anthem to the modest, the quiet, and the “real under the biggest lie you ever told.”
Whether it’s a quiet solo set or the fuller, more textured arrangements on his records, Sean Kiely keeps writing toward the next moment, where a song turns a corner and pulls you along with it. Long Live The Low is out everywhere on vinyl & streaming 10/16/26.