Hindsight by Roy Møller

PENNY BLACK MUSIC REVIEW by Steve KInrade (Oct 2025)

Profoundly moving new album from Scotland-based singer-songwriter Roy Moller which looks back through the shadow of memory.

Roy Moller’s new album 'Hindsight' is not just another collection of well-crafted songs; it is a deeply personal excavation of memory, identity, and belonging that resonates far beyond the artist himself. For me, as a listener who has walked similar paths of childhood displacement and self-discovery, this record struck a chord that was both unexpected and profoundly moving.

The twelve tracks, made in collaboration once again with Swiss-based producer Stevie Walker, draw directly from Moller’s own story: conceived in 1960s Toronto, adopted across the Atlantic into an Edinburgh family, and shaped by questions of heritage, neurodiversity, and identity. The songs are steeped in these themes, yet they avoid self pity. Instead, they radiate a mature perspective, a kind of grace in the face of painful
truths. Listening felt less like consuming someone else’s story and more like being gently guided to confront my own.

Sonically, Hindsight has a dual character. On the one hand, Moller remains the consummate songwriter, delivering melodies that are accessible and “ear friendly,” with choruses that sneak back without permission hours later. On the other, the production is unafraid to experiment. At times this works beautifully: the propulsive 'Settler’s Song' bursts with restless energy, while the Beck-like 'Elastics' is playful, inventive, and perhaps for me the album’s standout.

What I took away most strongly from Hindsight was its emotional generosity from the author. Moller’s songs do not just tell us about his life; they invite us to examine our own. Personally, they stirred recollections of childhood moments when belonging felt fragile, when questions of identity loomed large. In that sense, Hindsight goes beyond being an album—it becomes a mirror.

There is no doubt that Roy Moller is creating a body of work of lasting artistic value. If 'Hindsight' has allowed him to put old ghosts to rest, then it has also given listeners like myself the space to acknowledge and reconcile our own troublesome spirits. That is the quiet majesty of this collection of songs: they speak not only for the artist, but for all of us who have ever felt unmoored and abandoned, and for that Roy Moller deserves both our gratitude and admiration.

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ROY MOLLER: HINDSIGHT

Download
The Beautiful Music (Beauty 064)
roymoller.bandcamp.com


In 2023 Roy Moller (Wow Kafe, Store Keys, Jesus, Baby! and regular collaborator with Belle & Sebastian guitarist Stevie Jackson) released Songs from Be My Baby on Ottawa label The Beautiful Music, a musical evocation of themes from his poem cycle Be My Baby (Dionysia Press, 2019).

Now Roy and The Beautiful Music are releasing Hindsight, a follow-up to these very personal explorations about adoption, neurodiversity and identity. Hindsight’s 12 songs blend childhood memory and present-day reflection with a mature perspective of the challenges faced and the love given by the parents he never knew who put him up for adoption and the Edinburgh couple who took him in, 3,000 miles from his conception in 1960s Toronto.

As with Songs from Be My Baby, Hindsight teams Moller with Swiss-based collaborator Stevie Walker, producing a song cycle that combines unflinching lyrical honesty with a pop sensibility that led BBC 6Music’s Marc Riley to declare Roy “Scotland’s best-kept secret”.

British-Canadian pop artist.

bemybaby.substack.com