Grief doesn’t always come in waves. Sometimes it lingers in the quiet corners of a room, in the steam rising from a mug, in the sound of someone else humming down the hall. Forget Me Not, the new EP from Montreal folk trio Ruby Creek, feels like it lives in those corners. It doesn’t dramatize loss, but instead invites you to sit with it. We begin with a haunting A cappella of layered vocals with “Intro,” before diving into the quiet, haunting, and deeply affecting title track. The trio—Nova Nastasia, Riley Wilson, and Ben Paquette—layer verses and harmonize in a way that feels less like performance and more like ceremony. The song walks a slow path with acoustic guitar and lightly plucked banjo (a sound that stays through most of the EP) with every note landing like a footstep on soft ground. The lyrics are delicate and direct, written not in metaphor but in memory. There’s an intimacy to these songs, as if the three piece is in your living room as you go about your day.
“Chicken Stock,” brings more of a guitar-focused bluesy vibe and has you swaying with the light drum beat, but again, it’s those vocal marriages that hit hard and leave you craving more. You hear the echo of Gillian Welch Adrianne Lenker, and Rhiannon Giddens. “Weeds,” has more of a murder ballad vibe to it, and I absolutely love the rag and bone guitar lead licks in the outro.
What makes Forget Me Not so haunting is its stillness. It’s not flashy. There’s no real climax. Just six songs that hover around the listener like a quiet fog. You don’t so much listen to them as dwell inside them. The arrangements are understated—guitar, fiddle, upright bass, sparse percussion—but every sound is chosen with care. Ruby Creek has crafted an EP that feels timeless in the best way—rooted in folk tradition, but emotionally unplaceable.
