Invisible Pictures

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Many have tried to recreate the melancholy magic of Elliott Smith, but few have captured it as well as Jeremy Ivey does on his third album. The Nashville singer-songwriter—also a guitarist in his wife Margo Price's band—even plays one of Smith's hollow-bodied guitars on the record, which was "finished off" with the help of Smith co-producer Rob Schnapf. You can hear the late musician's spirit on tracks like the beautiful "Trial By Fire," featuring an almost carnival-esque melody and the perfect lyric "See the sky full of stars/ Every one is a mistake/ That you've made in your life/ That you were always gonna make." On the upbeat, Beatles-esque (one of Smith's chief influences, of course) "Phantom Limb," it's the way Ivey draws out the end of lyrical lines like "and it felt like a kiiiiiiiiiiss." Which is not to say Ivey is a one-trick pony. He turns '50s crooner for the terrific "Orphan Child," an incredibly personal song that Ivey—who is adopted—has said, is about being "born at the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong body to the wrong people." It's also about being judged for who you "are": your sex or race or culture, "something you had no part in choosing." "I'm an orphan honey/ I'm a no-name nomad living in this great unknown/ Yes I'm an orphan but I'm better on my own," Ivey sings over bright sax, and blurry guitar. "Keep Me High," which boasts a dreamy melody and bright mid-'60s vibe, was co-written with Price, who has said that Ivey saved her following the death of their baby son from a heart condition. After she spiraled into depression and alcohol abuse, landing up in jail, Ivey sold their car to fund her going into the studio for her now-acclaimed debut Midwest Farmer's Daughter. You can't help but wonder if Price, who worked in a restaurant before hitting it big, inspired the lovely, steel-guitar-woozy "Grey Machine": She cleans the tables for these clowns/ She don't ask what anything means/ Red red rose in the grey machine." That one could be an outtake from Sloan's great Navy Blues, as could "Downhill (Upside Down Optimist)" with its bittersweet rolling piano, searing guitar and high-angst strings. It's an uncomfortable position to probe the human condition, but Ivey does it with unflinching grace, writing songs that are, as he sings on the title track, "Invisible pictures that I hang to cover up these walls of shame." © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz