Hot on the heels of a year which saw her perform around Europe supporting powerhouses Anastacia and Eurovision winner Loreen, London-based artist Casey McQuillen is back with a brilliant new single, “Wedding Date.” It’s a track that somehow manages to perfectly encapsulate the bittersweet pull of a love that never quite comes to rest in permanence, and an almost that hangs like a scent well after the final dance.
And with her emotive, soulful voice, McQuillen paints a lush picture that sounds pulled from an emotional drama. Picture champagne flutes clinking, white arrangements exchanged in a whisper of hands-to-hands, seltzer-swilling cover band crooning under the string lights. On another man’s extraordinary day, two former lovers reunite. Their chemistry is electric, their shared history is poignant and unforgettably preserved, for like the night itself, their reunion cannot endure.
What’s so chilling about “Wedding Date” is not only its storytelling, but also the intimacy McQuillen strikes between it and universality. She doesn’t flinch from the ache of longing or the sting of knowing something can’t last. Instead, she converts those fragile feelings into a song that sounds both profoundly personal and universally identifiable. If you’ve ever gotten too close to a love that just won’t quit, then you’ll see yourself in its lyrics. The single coats McQuillen’s prismatic voice in a lush wash of sound that heaves and retreats, much like memory itself. It’s not a song that calls out for attention, it takes it by gently demanding to be paid some, persistently and subtly, until you’re trapped in its walls.
“Wedding Date” is just more proof that McQuillen’s not only an artist with arena-commanding power, but a whisper straight to the heart. It’s a reminder that sometimes the most unforgettable love stories are those that never quite got written.