In the Afterglow is Cynthia Marchant’s third studio album produced with Steve Dawson of Chicago, IL. at the Kernel Sound Emporium. They continue to surprise and please listeners with lyric grit and twang that'll take you south, as Steve embraces the essence of each song and weaves a rich, rootsy musical texture that leads straight to the heart of the matter. 

Southern roots and a love of adventure are inspiration for Cynthia, who was raised in a musical family in Arkansas and was immersed in outlaw country as well as 60s and 70s rock and roll at an early age, eventually falling for southern rock and learning to dance to Motown in her teens. Moving on, she spent several years in New Orleans where she came of age and found a new love for Zydeco, funk, jazz and brass bands.

Cynthia explores spiritual truth and depth, and the magic of connecting with self and others in the many stages of life. Her keen observations and intuitive songwriting style combine to explore the journey of love and freedom. Drawing from memories and precious moments along the way, she takes you along for the ride while exploring a winding path of ups and downs. Love lost and found, and long lonely roads are continued themes. Freeways and back roads, heavy boots and fast cars, changing seasons and cosmic events, magic and reality, dreams and premonitions, relationships and loneliness, small towns and uptown, despair and hope, death and birth, communication and silence, nothing is off limits for Cynthia who is known around town as a great songwriter. Her hypnotic voice mesmerizes; evocative, gritty lyrics tell stories; some are true.

Road trips; childhood memories; ghosts of past, present, future; the passing of time; the pandemic… these all serve as the foundation for this collection of stories of love and loss as they weave with the magic of the music to enchant, and it is the simple things in life that elevate and sustain as explored in Elevating. The invitation as the Covid lockdown opens up, and a new and changed life speeds up again, is to Get a Little Deeper. 

In This Small Town, Cynthia takes you back to the Ozark Mountains where she spent a lot of time at her grandfather’s house as a kid, and vividly remembers hearing and seeing a huge tornado as it passed by! Moments like that are a reminder that life is a miracle and "in the end, we're all just passing through, a stormy day, a cloud, a sky of blue."

Cynthia's love of fast cars developed at an early age as a direct result of an experience on a quiet freeway in the deep south where the speed limits were a suggestion. With a large bottle of whiskey in the hands of the shotgun co-pilot, there was the encouragement to go faster and faster, and Cynthia was happy to comply. With this experience now in the rearview mirror, Cynthia is indeed Happy to be Alive.

A road trip to Nashville sparks a dream, and for the love of music a Tennessee Dream continues. And speaking of roads, in Trying to Let Go, Cynthia encourages the listener to let go of the heartbreak of the true love that didn't last, and to stop playing the field to prevent another possible heartbreak or we're all going to end up alone. She ponders the love that could have been in I Saw You There.

We can know love and have love, but it may never be enough, and even though the embrace of love may continue, there is an understanding that nothing is forever as explored in the title track, In the Afterglow. 

There is a sweet memory through the magical lens of time and wisdom, and in The Light Cynthia speaks of young love in a simpler time while living in the Sierra mountains.

Cynthia has lived in Chicago, IL. more years than not, and lived in New Orleans, California, Nevada, and Idaho, but in many ways still thinks of Arkansas as home. Flowers and Bones celebrates her musical foundation there, where her brother taught her a few guitar chords and left a guitar behind for her to play as he went to serve in the army. The rich musical history of Arkansas is personal and much more, and the stories of Highway 67 continue to intrigue those who have traveled down that way.

Cynthia wrote this collection of songs between 2014 and 2024.