"A Random Act of Kindness" Released: April 28, 2022
This Is a Photograph is the seventh studio album by American indie rock musician Kevin Morby, released on May 13, 2022, on Dead Oceans. The album is inspired by Morby's fascination with the city of Memphis, Tennessee, and was produced by musician Sam Cohen. It features a guest appearance by indie folk singer-songwriter Erin Rae. It was promoted by the singles "This Is a Photograph", "Rock Bottom" and "A Random Act of Kindness". It received acclaim from critics, who praised Morby's vulnerability and assessed it as a new artistic peak.
The album was written primarily during Morby's sojourn in Memphis, Tennessee, where he stayed at the historic Peabody Hotel. The album was inspired by Morby's own fear of death and an incident in which his father collapsed before a family dinner in January 2020 after accidentally taking double his heart medication. He began writing the album's title track after viewing old family photos with his mother the night of his father's medical scare, and was particularly struck by an image of his father around his same age posing shirtless on the lawn under the Texas sun. The album also draws inspiration from Memphis' history of tragedy, including Elvis Presley, Jeff Buckley and Jay Reatard, all of whom died in Memphis, and the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Morby paid visits to the Lorraine Motel, Graceland (where Elvis died) and the exact bank of the Mississippi River where Buckley drowned. He also traveled the "haunted" portion of U.S. Route 61 that extends south into the Mississippi Delta, which has a rich association with blues music.[1] The album features backing vocals by students of the Stax Music Academy in South Memphis.[2]
This Is a Photograph was met with critical acclaim. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 87, based on 11 reviews.[5] Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 8.1 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.[4]
NME's Jordan Bassett gave the album a perfect 5-star rating, calling it an "epic ode to the fragility of life and the consequent need to cherish love, joy and family."[10] Kat Bouza of Rolling Stone called This Is a Photograph "an album of emotional ephemera set to song" that is populated by "a cast of characters constantly adrift, grasping for emotional life rafts." Notably, she writes "the album hits its strongest points when Morby opens himself up to reckless abandon."[15]
Erin Osmon of Uncut gave the album a 9 out of 10 rating, writing, "With This Is a Photograph, he offers the wisest and most assured rendering of the Middle American vision he's been honing of late, one where Dylan-esque anti-singing narrates impassioned, earnest and earthen tales of family, place, love and heroes, and a crack band shakes the rafters."[2] Ellen Johnson of Paste considered it the "convergence" of his entire discography, an album that showcases the breadth of his "talent and wisdom" whilst not overshadowing his previous work.[11] Fred Thomas of AllMusic assessed the album as finding Morby at his most direct in vulnerability and that it featured more complex and "best-sounding" arrangements, concluding that these qualities make it "one of the best chapters in an already impressive catalog; one that finds a new artistic depth as it faces some of life's eternal concerns."[6] Danny Eccleston of Mojo called it "a record that feels warmer, wiser and less forced than any of his albums so far."[9] Brian Howe of Pitchfork wrote, "By infusing his artful folk-rock with the unfailingly pleasing sounds of vintage gospel and soul, Morby has made an ambitious record that proudly stands out in his sprawling catalog."[12]
A companion album to This Is a Photograph, called More Photographs (A Continuum), was released on Dead Oceans on May 26, 2023. It features reimagined versions of three songs from This Is a Photograph, as well as six new songs.[22]
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