Like Emmylou Harris, Tift Merritt has a gift for evoking grief and how to survive (if not rise above) it. Tucker Martine’s production wraps her fourth album in catchy, mid-tempo warmth, but what lingers afterward is just how heavy these meditations on the hardness of the world are. Respite arrives with the penultimate track, a cover of Anne Murray’s 1972 hit “Danny’s Song,” an expression of devotional joy and faith in the future. Then Merritt warns on the very next track, “Don’t ask me what comes after today.”
?
