Pre-save Nobody Lives Here on Spotify here.

Brian Fennell, the mind behind SYML, has always had a knack for crafting music that feels both deeply personal and universally resonant. With Nobody Lives Here, his follow-up to The Day My Father Died, Fennell turns his gaze to time itself, how it slips through our fingers, leaves its marks, and forces us to adapt.

“This album came out of watching change unfold right in front of me,” says Fennell. “Getting older, learning to live with disappointment, and recognizing how expectations can shape, and sometimes unsettle, our experience of time.” Some of these songs were recorded with kids and dogs creating a natural backdrop, others in pristine studios alongside musicians he’s long admired. The contrast mirrors the album’s essence - raw and refined, intimate and expansive.

Fennell’s songwriting remains as evocative as ever, weaving themes of love, loss, and acceptance into compositions that shimmer with cinematic beauty. On Nobody Lives Here, he crafts moments of warmth within melancholy, balancing stark reflections with lush instrumentation. “Careful” opens with playful piano lines, offering a meditation on life’s fleeting nature. “Heavy Hearts” pairs falsetto vocals with acoustic strums, a bittersweet acceptance that love persists even as it drifts. “Something Beautiful and Bright” meanwhile, lingers like an abandoned town - fading, yet never fully gone.

Since first breaking out with Where’s My Love, SYML has built a devoted global audience, performing at venues ranging from Amsterdam’s Paradiso to London’s Union Chapel and selling out Seattle’s Benaroya Hall with a symphony behind him. His collaborations, whether working with Lana Del Rey or producer Phil Ek, have only deepened his artistic range. But at its core, SYML remains distinctly Fennell: a voice that doesn’t shy away from life’s contradictions, a songwriter willing to embrace both the beauty and the weight of existence.

With Nobody Lives Here, SYML delivers an album that, much like time itself, never quite sits still. It’s a record meant to be lived with, growing and shifting with each listen. “Every time someone hears a song, it’s the first time for them,” says Fennell. “That’s the beautiful thing - we’re all experiencing it together, again, for the first time.”

For information about SYML's upcoming shows at National Sawdust, visit here.