Allison Russell does not fight chaos with chaos. Where the current moment seems to reward contraction, inwardness, defensiveness, the performance of individual resilience, and so on─In the Hour of Chaos, her latest album, moves in the opposite direction entirely. It is a record that understands community as a method against the madness. As something built in the actual making of the thing, in the people invited into the room—dogs too—in the decision to let the room shape what comes out of it.

The result is an album that feels less like a statement than a gathering. The entire vibe of In the Hour of Chaos is an act of generosity, in the way that only work made by people who genuinely need each other can be. Russell is a Montreal-raised, Nashville-based artist whose biography contains more than enough material for an inward record. She has chosen, consistently and deliberately, to make the opposite kind. This latest is the fullest expression of that instinct yet: arms wide, tent big, and entirely convinced that joy is not the consolation prize for people who can’t handle the darkness … it is the point of it all.