On Tough Love, Simon Joyner returns to the unimaginable heartache that shaped 2024’s Coyote Butterfly, though these songs feel less starkly autobiographical and more willing to inhabit other lives and imagined voices. The grief still looms large, especially in the towering title track, but elsewhere Joyner moves through carefully observed vignettes with patience, detail, and a cruel kind of beauty. It’s shattering work, but beautifully presented, with arrangements and performances that never lose sight of the songs beneath the pain . . .
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