There’s a lot to enjoy on Le Ren’s Don’t Be Funny Without Me: many musical delights, which I will get to shortly, and sounds filled with a desire to be uplifted and feel the positive side of life. I must also give you a heads up because, as the song cycle’s underlying subtext picks apart the period after a relationship has ended, it inevitably arrives at the point where the pain is confronted head-on. That arrives with the penultimate song on the album, which is also the title track. If you have the stomach for a song that puts a fist down your throat and rips your heart out, and everyone hurts that way sometimes, obviously, then get ready for a premium ballad with a high percentage of ache. If it were an alcoholic beer, the bartender would recommend you only have a third of a pint. With the piano at a mournful tempo and the singer recalling the laughter of an ex, confessing that this expression above all others will reduce her to tears, the words of this album title hit home with incredible weight. It makes me think of the late Dolly Parton’s I Will Always Love You; it is that kind of longing, and this really is that kind of song, and arguably just as good. The album then closes with Epilogue, staying in the piano-introspection vein, with Le Ren trying to comfort herself alone with the repeated reassurance that “my songs will love me back”; this only underlines the real hurt and need for healing at the core of this record, guiding listeners through the emotional arc from pain to hope.
Pain, hurt and loneliness are far from the only story being told here, though. This is a work that has grown in tandem with the movement Le Ren has undertaken, both emotional and literal and the mentorship received on those travels, leading to a widening of her emotional range on this impressively evolved album. Le Ren, née Lauren Spear, grew up on Bowen Island with musician parents who introduced her to folk and bluegrass from a young age, influences that helped shape her music when she later moved to Montreal and began releasing music as Le Ren. KLOF Mag’s David Morrison described an early EP as “the most lyrically heavy-hearted and sonically spare releases you will hear this or any other year”; he went on to review her 2021 debut album, leaving us with the thought: “what future gold she’ll lay upon us is an enticing prospect”.
When she returned to Canada to record Don’t Be Funny Without Me, she chose to work closely with longtime friends in rural Ontario, creating fuller arrangements with fiddle, drums, and layered harmonies that go beyond her earlier spareness as well as adding a new warmth and bite to that voice. Across the album, she writes with the clarity of hindsight and the blur of memory, recalling the ache of romantic fallout while reaching toward a steadier version of herself.
If the overall tone is like taking a post-breakup road trip with a best friend, then that seems wholly intentional. There is a freedom of intent, an open-endedness to the destination; the baggage of the past may be stuffed in the car boot, or even removed and rummaged through at various truck stops, but there is also a desire not to be weighed down by it. So, if they happen to drive off leaving behind a bit of unwanted debris at the odd burger joint, so much the better.
Not only that, but given the album’s devastating final destination, there’s plenty of good humour, positive intention, and uplifting sound to enjoy throughout. Early standout Free Wheeling is a folk-rock nugget for the ages. Propelled by revolving fiddle lines, sweetened by the loveliest of West Coast-style harmonies and dressed in a sumptuous warm breeziness, this is a wondrous song. About halfway, an acid-folk guitar part comes in, and I wonder how it is with every new element; the song keeps getting better and better. It appears to be so beautifully written that there is nothing that could ruin it.
Gold In California is the most out-and-out pop hook present here; think Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac, and it carries a similar punch to those masters of the turbulent romance songs, recounting a car journey conversation, the kind that only happens when a couple are on their final stretch together.
Later, the restlessly paced Otherwise I’m Fine contains one of my favourite lines of the whole album, also highlighting Le Ren’s precise gift for saying so much with just a tiny detail. “My phone told me I made a brand-new memory. It’s the photo you took while I was screaming.” Even more ponderous moments, like Going Through The Motions, are bolstered by lush arrangements like the most moorish of ear candy, as is Die Inside, which, despite the darkness in the finality of the refrain, is the purest of country ballads. In essence, this is a phenomenally powerful album, one that masterfully deploys a wide range of musical tropes to tell a real-life story. Le Ren dives into suffering the listener can tangibly feel, but she also points the way to survival with songs that will surely entice anyone who encounters them to return again and again.
Don’t Be Funny Without Me (August 28th, 2026) Royal Mountain Records