The members of the critically acclaimed New York trio IVY have been refining their distinctive brand of evocative, bittersweet pop for nearly a decade. But on the long-awaited In The Clear (the group’s fourth full-length, not including 2002’s all-covers collection Guestroom ), they have combined elements of each of their previous records to make what may be the most striking and confident album of their career.
IVY — Parisian-born singer Dominique Durand, Andy Chase and Adam Schlesinger — began life as a stripped-down indie band, with a unpolished, jangly sound offset by Durand’s intimate, and (especially in the early days) heavily accented vocals. But on their breakthrough second album Apartment Life in 1997, they began to augment their succinct melodies and chiming guitars with richer arrangements that revealed their growing comfort level in the recording studio.
