Liberated (2018) is Levi Kreis stripped back to the bone: a piano-centered, acoustic breakup diary tracing a relationship from first spark to final divorce and the slow work of recovery. Across twelve songs—“Best Day Ever,” “Summer Rain,” “Too Deep to Go Down,” “Worlds Apart,” “Stranger in My House,” “Walls,” “Unafraid,” “Nobody in His Right Mind,” “Liberate You,” “Wanted,” “Still Around,” and “Dawn of a New Day”—the production stays close to the keys, colored by pedal steel, mandolin, and quiet rhythm. Recorded in Chicago with Rob Ruccia and funded by longtime Kickstarter supporters, the album moves from infatuation to reckoning to a cautious kind of hope. Critics have called these piano-centric songs “filled to overflowing with emotional vibrancy,” which fits: nothing here feels theoretical. It’s just a man at the piano, telling the truth about a love that didn’t make it and the light that comes after.