“It comes and goes in waves,” sang Dean Lewis on his 2016 debut single, “Waves,” which earned platinum sales in multiple countries. Yet the Sydney songwriter’s career hasn’t ebbed and flowed so much as it has held firm in the years since. His 2018 tune “Be Alright” retained his folky, confessional approach and achieved even stronger sales than its predecessors, setting up his debut album, 2019’s A Place We Knew, as a sleeper hit. Addressing his father’s cancer diagnosis at the time, Lewis’ 2022 ballad “How Do I Say Goodbye” became a touchstone track of his emotional follow-up The Hardest Love. Even as he has gone from strength to strength, though, Lewis has still felt like that vulnerable soul dispatching his deepest anxieties out into the ether. That’s especially true of his chapter-closing 2024 album The Epilogue and its opening track, “Empire,” a portrait of letting his best friend go so she can follow her own dreams. Like everything Lewis does, it feels genuinely from the heart while packing enough universal meaning to deeply affect anyone who has ever had to say a painful goodbye.