Burning Bridges by Liya Shapiro: Review

by admin June 14, 2025

June 14, 2025

Liya Shapiro’s latest single, “Burning Bridges,” released on June 6, 2025, is a hauntingly elegant collapse into emotional ruin. From the first sparse piano notes, the track seduces the listener into a landscape of melancholy, where the ghosts of Beethoven echo faintly through an anxious melodic line. Then comes Liya’s deep, smoky, and slow voice, like a memory you wish you could drown. It creeps in with a grave sincerity, just before the track detonates into a furious chorus driven by seething guitars and pounding drums, creating a riot of rhythm that feels both defiant and desperate.

The real mastery of “Burning Bridges” lies in its unpredictability. Liya tears it back down, letting a slow, steady drumbeat guide her weary vocals through verses laced with dark humor and aching honesty. Her mezzo tone stretches into slurred vulnerability, almost intoxicated, like she’s singing from the edge of sleep or relapse. The guitar solo mid-song is a quick, slithering burst of manic energy that spirals out before collapsing into a hushed, fragile finale. The cello, which made a ghostly appearance early on, returns at the end like a soft but irreversible wound reopening.

Drawing from a deeply personal well of experience with addiction, mental illness, and the chaos of love, Liya’s genre-fluid sound skips effortlessly between dream pop, post-punk, and rock opera. You can hear traces of Lana Del Rey’s broken glamour and the razor wit of classic Brit rock, but what sets Liya apart is her absolute refusal to flinch. With a background in fashion, anthropology, and art, Shapiro curates a burning feeling with “Burning Bridges.”