Nina Jo Smith — Out of the Darkness

There is no shortage to Nina Jo Smith’s Out of the Darkness. Perhaps that’s because it’s Smith’s second studio album, and first in almost a decade. The album seeks to bottle up the difficult times in the last ten years — the turbulence of the Trump administration, the trials of lockdown, and Smith’s personal tragedies — and teach us how to prevail. Smith herself has had to re-calibrate her singing after battling with COVID-19, lending further credence to her message of perseverance.