Carly Keyes Lets Heartbreak Breathe on 'See This Through...'

Los Angeles singer-songwriter Carly Keyes strips heartbreak down to its most human form on See This Through..., a nine-track acoustic-pop album shaped by longing, grief, memory, hope, and the difficult work of moving forward. Rather than dressing those emotions in oversized production, Keyes keeps the record close, relying primarily on voice and acoustic guitar to create something that feels caught somewhere between a journal entry and a late-night living room performance.

Opening track “Love That Remains” establishes the album’s reflective foundation before “Feeling High” and “Sober From You” explore the complicated emotional aftermath of connection. By “Enough,” the record begins asking harder questions about validation and self-worth, themes that feel particularly at home within Keyes’ understated approach.

The title track, “See This Through...,” sits naturally at the album’s center. Even the unfinished punctuation of its title feels appropriate for a project largely concerned with continuing through experiences that do not necessarily provide clean endings.

“Fireflies” and “Hear Your Name Again” carry the record deeper into memory and longing, while “Vibrations” connects Keyes’ musical and filmmaking worlds. She originally wrote the song for Good Vibrations, a short film in which she co-starred about an anxious singer-songwriter and an ASL poet finding their way back to the stage. “Understood” ultimately closes the nine-song collection.

What works about See This Through... is its refusal to overproduce vulnerability. Keyes embraces atmosphere and imperfection, giving the songs enough space to feel genuinely lived-in.

Written across different chapters of her life, the album ultimately finds its cohesion through emotional honesty. See This Through... is not interested in pretending grief disappears. Instead, Carly Keyes offers something quieter and arguably more useful: companionship while you carry it.

You describe See This Through... as songs written across different chapters of your life. What made you realize these separate experiences belonged together on one album?

I wrote three of these songs within the past year, but the others are all five… ten… even twenty years old. “Hear Your Name Again” is actually the first song I ever wrote. I chose songs that… when I play them now, I still feel like myself.

Kind of how friendship circles typically shrink over time, this album is like a close-knit crew that’s kept in touch across time and distance. “See This Through…” felt like the obvious title for a collection that truly reflects “the mileage” (to borrow from Indiana Jones…)

There’s very little separating the listener from your voice and guitar on this record. Was there ever a temptation to build the production out further, and what made you ultimately protect that stripped-back sound?

While I’ve recorded before in studios with bands and producers, I feel most at home when it’s just me and my acoustic guitar or my keyboard.

So, I knew I wanted to DIY and keep the production simple: I recorded in my apartment, tracked live, mostly one-takes, with a single mic for both vocals and guitar.  

When mastering, I crafted a crisp, warm, raw sound to preserve the overall intimacy. 

My hope is that listeners feel like they’re hearing a half-hour acoustic set at a late-night living room hang or cozy venue. I keep the sessions in an archive on Vimeo.

The album touches on the need for validation alongside trust, vulnerability, grief, and connection. Has your understanding of validation changed since writing some of these songs?

At some point, I internalized the fallacy that love must be earned through achievements. A therapist even once described me as “a human doing, not a human being…”

That line made almost too much sense to me and led to my writing “Enough,” which was the first time I really explored a pattern of tying my entire self-worth to various goal-oriented pursuits, typically within highly structured, intense environments.

However, art has never felt like a goal to me, but rather, like relief… some innate desire for a break from that way of operating. It’s messy, subjective, vulnerable, undefined. I’m not trying to win anything when I write a song, just connect honestly. It’s freeing.

“Vibrations” was originally written for Good Vibrations, a film you also co-starred in. How did writing for a character or visual story change your songwriting process compared to writing directly from your own experiences?

Usually, lyrics randomly “come to me” first, and then I find the music with no timeline for completion. However, for this film, my co-directors wanted a specific musical style and subject matter, and I had to create with a deadline. I would also be performing the song for camera, alongside a character who is an ASL poet, so that helped inform my lyrics. 

After a couple rounds of feedback, I offered two songs: We settled on “Vibrations,” and the song we didn’t use (“Feeling High”) ended up on my album, too. This project was a great opportunity to grow while blending my longtime love of music-making with a more recent passion: improvisational acting.

Writing about my own life is cathartic but can get heavy and self-involved. Improv classes are my ideal complement because they get me out of my head and force me to be present, playful, and vulnerable with a supportive team. 

Musical improv is especially satisfying; I’ve never felt more joyful and alive than when inventing lyrics in real time with a group of people!

You’ve said you hope this album can be a companion for people carrying grief or other heavy emotions. Is there one song on See This Through... that was especially difficult for you to write, but ultimately became important for you to release?

“Love That Remains” was my deliberate attempt to accept how I can’t simply “turn off” challenging feelings. I wrote it after my Nanna had passed away, and I was struggling with a sadness I’d never known.

Historically, I default to stuffing… like: “Oh no… Don’t feel sad… that hurts… I’m fine!” I’m now trying to get better at pausing and acknowledging, allowing tears or whatever my body needs… hugging my cat… journaling or reaching out to a friend. 

And anytime I perform this one live, it’s yet another reminder to integrate my grief versus deny it…to celebrate it as proof of the courage it takes to care deeply.

I recently wrote and produced a short film with this same theme called Pacific Pilgrimage. I studied screenwriting at the University of Michigan (Go Blue!), which is where I first found myself drawn to stories that explore attachment and emotional complexity.

I’m simply fascinated by situations that demand two states at once… like holding space to mourn while also funneling leftover love into new outlets. Music is always an essential one for me.