Brian Fennell doesn’t shy away from emotion. Grief, change, and the relentless passage of time have always shaped his songwriting, but on Nobody Lives Here, these themes take on a more grounded form. Building on the emotional weight of 2023’s The Day My Father Died, this new album feels more spacious, stripped-back and introspective.

The Seattle-based artist was previously part of the indie band Barcelona. He performs under the solo project SYML, which is Welsh for "simple" - an homage to the birthplace of his biological parents. He has also collaborated with Lana Del Rey on the song 'Paris, Texas', which was released in 2023, on the album Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd. Lana's song samples SYML's instrumental track 'I Wanted to Leave' from his EP You Knew It Was Me.

His third full-length release as SYML, Nobody Lives Here spans 11 tracks of raw, vulnerable songwriting, an unflinching exploration of emotion delivered with quiet intensity and clarity.

There’s a softness to Brian's voice, both musically and personally, that lends itself to vulnerability, and the new LP leans into it fully. While its predecessor carried the weight of his father’s passing, this new album opens up space for being present, reflection and joy.

“I think the themes kind of showed itself later in the process,” he explains. “As I was writing the songs they were about various things, like getting older or the passing of time, or loss, and all these things that we experience. But the groundedness comes from a general sense of being able to let go so that time can move on even though it can be painful.

"In order to be present in anything in our lives I think it's also a series of letting go, because we’re not living in the past, and we shouldn’t obsess about the future, it's about letting go of things you can’t change or control.”

The album’s title track and closer is a quietly devastating centrepiece tinged with soft harmonies and gentle piano.

“I just think it’s beautiful, and I find it very sad,” he says. “But I also find it’s about letting go, a good release. Sonically it has the pedal steel guitar, which I’m in love with, and a really delicate piano. It has all kinds of different organic elements that make up the whole record. It felt like a perfect way to end the album.”

Nobody Lives Here is also more inward-looking, standing apart from its predecessor by not containing any featured artists. The choice gave the record a sense of cohesion and solitude.

“Somewhere along the run I realised when an opportunity presented itself to collaborate with another artist it was more of ‘well we can’t do that every album’ type of decision,” Brian explains. “But I was able to collaborate with my best friend and long-time co-producer and engineer Brian [Eichelberger], so in that sense this album was collaborative, but not in the sense of featuring other artists.

“I had a fun time working with the musicians that we did. We weren't limited by any sort of rules on what the next album had to sound like or had to be about. Full creative freedom is the goal.”

Some of that simplicity echoes his 2020 instrumental EP, You Knew It Was Me. Though wordless, it captured something central to his writing: subtle melodies, emotional honesty, and room to breathe.

“If you were to take out the vocals from SYML songs, they’d be very much like You Knew It Was Me or those piano EPs,” he reflects. “It’s not a far stretch in terms of the melodies and the space and simplicity I aim to strive for with the lyrical songs as well. I think you can be lyrical with melodies.”

Grief hasn’t left SYML’s song writing. Much of Nobody Lives Here was written in the aftermath of The Day My Father Died, an LP that was steeped in personal loss. This time, those emotions are still present, just quieter and more contemplative.

“It was a heavy season,” he says. “It was in Covid still, so it was globally very heavy. My second album was very allured by that, and this album was the first kind of breath after that.

"Grief goes with you everywhere. It doesn’t go away, it just changes how it shows itself to you, and it’s definitely present in this album, but certainly not as much, not as specifically as that one. It was a really hard time, but there’s a ton of beauty in very dark things, so I found a lot of that during that time, not just sadness.”

That sense of contrast, sadness alongside beauty, discomfort alongside clarity, runs deep throughout the record. So does love, especially in the quietly devastating 'Carry No Thing', which Brian describes as an “apocalyptic love song.”

“Shows like The Last of Us are a good example of trying to survive something that feels impossible. I think that’s beautiful, it’s what love is about. Even if you’re faced with this impossible task, you still try to endure because you love somebody so much, even though at the end of the day the only thing you really have is that love is not ensured, it’s this intangible thing that we carry.”

SYML often finds himself circling the same idea: the end of the world. Not in a hopeless or apocalyptic way, but as something universal and human.

“I’m obsessed with the end of the world,” he says. “From an artistic standpoint,” he adds with a laugh. “It’s something that is inevitable, and it’s scary, and unknown, sort of how it all ends for us. But I think that it is something that helps me feel very present both creatively and personally.”

One of the most powerful threads in SYML’s work is fatherhood, both the loss of his own dad, and the experience of becoming one.

“Becoming a father has absolutely changed the way I approach those themes,” he says. “Having kids is basically having little mirrors running around where you see yourself, for better and for worse. It is extremely inspirational to be able to write about yourself, and of course about them too and the beautiful ways in which they change and grow, but also how you grow and change as a person. It also makes you reflect on how you were raised by your parents, so it’s this limitless inspiration of your day.”

That ongoing sense of growth shaped how he approached this record compared to The Day My Father Died. Even though the two albums share overlapping themes, they feel markedly different in tone.

"Time changes it all,” he reflects. “I’ve grown up. I’ve become wiser in some ways, but certainly a few years older. All these albums are snapshots of a certain time, and so this album was a snapshot of the last year of my life. I’m in a completely different space now. So it changed with me, and I think that’s one of the cool challenges for any artist, to honestly reflect on where you’re at."

Ultimately, with Nobody Lives Here, SYML has found a way to honour silence, space, emotion, and finding light in the midst of darkness.

“Personally it’s this acceptance of getting older," he says. "Learning to fall in love with yourself again, as well as with your partner, because they go through changes too.

"No one is here for very long. It’s a matter of choosing to love yourself and love each other in the time that you have, without holding on to expectations from the past or thinking like, oh it will be better tomorrow, I don’t need to worry about it today. It’s a challenge to be present and embrace the good with the bad equally, instead of trying to hide from what’s bad, but also what’s good for you.

“I think a lot of people do that. They hide from a lot of powerful, beautiful things that might be scary. Because you don’t feel like you deserve them or because you’re afraid it will hurt.”

Listen to the full album Nobody Lives Here below: