Amy LaVere - Painting Blue (2019)

When speaking with Memphis musical stalwart Amy LaVere about her new album, Painting Blue (Nine Mile Records), I hesitate to pin it down as "dark." There are plenty of light, lovely moments on it. But there's no denying that, after tapping into the darker side of hopefulness with album opener, "I Don't Wanna Know" by John Martyn, she returns to that well again and again. "Waiting for the towns to tumble/Waiting for the planes to fall/Waiting for the cities to crumble/Waiting to see us crawl," she sings, tweaking the original lyrics subtly, setting a stage where even moments of love are framed by the shadows of a world confronting disaster. "There's a real melancholy feeling to the record," I finally say, and LaVere can't help but agree. It was born of melancholy, though recording it ultimately helped her find a way out, as she adjusted to the joys of her marriage to guitarist and songwriter Will Sexton.

The lament comes to a head with "No Room for Baby," the singer's blunt confrontation of the winding down of her biological clock. "I'm only gonna do it live one time at the album release show, and then I'm never gonna do it again," LaVere notes. And yet, for all that, the deft flourishes of musicality in the ensemble playing and the string and vocal arrangements make for an enchanting journey. "You once had the full color scheme," she sings on the title track. "Now you're painting blue on everything." And yet the result, like the album cover itself, is a thing of blue-tinted beauty.