Sarah McLachlan’s Better Broken (2025) marks a return to form both musically and emotionally — a meditation on endurance, rendered with characteristic understatement. Co-written with Matt Morris, the title track distills the album’s central idea: that fracture is not the opposite of wholeness but sometimes a necessary condition of it. Built around spare piano and understated production, the song moves deliberately, each phrase carrying the weight of reflection rather than declaration. Critics described Better Broken as “luminous in its restraint” (Billboard) and “an unflinching portrait of resilience” (The Globe and Mail), noting how McLachlan’s voice — softened by time but sharpened by honesty — anchors the record’s quiet authority.

A decade earlier, on Shine On (2014), McLachlan and Morris had explored similar terrain with “Love Beside Me” and “Song for My Father,” both built on clarity of tone and emotional precision. Heard together, the collaborations trace a long arc: from grief to acceptance, from the ache of recovery to the calm that follows it.