It’s impossible to detach Elliott Smith’s tragic story from his music. Listening now, 12 years after his early death, the tortured alcoholics, lonely addicts and lovesick poets of his songs feel like ghosts whispering from the great unknown. Smith’s discography is sacred ground for indie rock and folk, and it’s a tough task reinterpreting that material without desecrating it. On their joint tribute LP, Seth Avett and Jessica Lea Mayfield strike a seductive balance between hero worship and craftsmanship, breathing new life into 12 Smith tunes without glossing over their inherent sadness. In its original form, “Between The Bars” was a mournful acoustic ballad—but Avett and Mayfield resculpt the drunken melancholy into a bluegrass reverie, their gently intertwined harmonies suggesting a slightly sweeter outcome for the narrator. Mayfield’s loping twang is an especially unique vehicle for Smith’s yearning, like on the moonlit chamber-pop of “Twilight’ and country-tinged “Angel in the Snow.” Smith’s legend may be shrouded in darkness, but his songs—in the hands of Avett and Mayfield—radiate new hope.