“Holy Holy,” Orenda Fink’s third song to drop from her forthcoming record Blue Dream, opens with a very classic-sounding guitar progression. Then you realize the almost spiderweb quality it has–spindly, dewy, and delicate. Fink’s vocals come in shortly and it’s all just pretty, blissful, and mournful. Fink wrote the song while grappling with the struggle of how we can love someone so deeply if the relationship ends in death. “Where does the love go?” she asks. The album was written after the death of her beloved dog. It all sounds very dour, but in this track (and the two others she’s dropped) there is also a sense of hopefulness, of yearning. Fink is looking for answers.

The song progresses quite nicely, with a beautiful chorus replete with a luminous harmony (which has always been one of Fink’s strong suits). In the first verse Fink sings, “We come into this world all alone/And we leave with not much more,” but by the chorus she seems to exalt her deceased love into the clouds above. A shimmering chime sounds out for emphasis, and then a keyboard gently glows, like the embers of a sinking fire. Fink has always been an astounding talent – her group Azure Ray’s debut remains one of my all-time favorite records – and her forthcoming record is bound to be one of aching loss, but also of a tender beauty, the kind that comes from having hope in times of darkness.

Blue Dream is out August 19 via Saddle Creek.