Singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalist Amy Helm’s third album, What The Flood Leaves Behind, is her most autobiographical yet, both in content and creation. These 10 songs represent a gathering of ideas and experiences, friends and collaborators. Yet, the album also marks a landing – a pause for the traveling musician and mother of two young boys who was seeking clarity in her calling and career. After making multiple albums and performing in far-flung places, Helm returned home to Woodstock’s Levon Helm Studios just before the pandemic to record What The Flood Leaves Behind and reclaim a sense of self.

An impressive group of friends and collaborators joins Helm on What The Flood Leaves Behind. With musical polyglot Josh Kaufman (whose credits range from Taylor Swift’s Folklore to the Grammy-nominated Bonny Light Horseman and Bob Weir) producing and contributing on piano, guitar, and mandolin, the record brings Helm’s powerful, emotive vocals to the forefront of the album. The songs themselves reflect Helm’s inner strength and personal growth.

“Breathing,” the first single, sets the tone as a soulful statement of survival. “Are We Running Out of Love?,” a freak-folk drone in the hands of Swedish guitarist and songwriter Daniel Norgren, becomes an acoustic, urgent plea. Throughout the record, Helm sings stories of life’s relentlessness. But like she extrapolates from “Verse 23,” the most productive, and often the most healing response, is to create. As a result, What The Flood Leaves Behind serves as a defiant form of self-expression, as Helm steps fully into her own light.