Lucinda Williams, West (Lost Highway):
Lucinda Williams new disc continues what has been a remarkable stretch for the Louisiana native that began with Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (a classic steeped in country and classic rock sounds that is the first disc to really capture her voice the way it needed to be captured) and has included Essence, World Without Tears and Live @ the Fillmore (my favorite because it strips the production down, captures the rawness of her songwriting in a way that is truly illuminating).
Her new disc, West, out two weeks today, continues this growth. I want to say it is her best studio effort to date, but her work doesn’t lend itself to that kind of analysis. Each disc, offers something different, making it difficult to rank them. This, of course, is the mark of a great songwriter. (Not to say that some are better than others — the last four are better than the first four, for instance.)
Williams’ discs always come at me in waves. There is the initial reaction to her expert songwriting, her inate understanding of the pop and country forms, her willingness to tease around their edges. Williams rarely breaks new ground, but always — and I mean always — injects a sense of freshness and urgency into the medium.
Then there are the lyrics, always — again, I mean always — literate, intelligent, confessional. Williams is pop/country poet — but not in the Lou Reed/Patti Smith or Bob Dylan molds. She is literate without being consciously literary, accumulating detail and sound — washing the dishes, listening to Hank Williams, driving the coast road. The lyrics on West are less specific than earlier work, but their sparseness is set within a haunting production that underscores their vulnerability.
And yet, this is a hopeful disc in many ways — one in which the damage wrought by the past is accepted and love possible.
The All Music Guide offers an enlightening review here.
John Mellencamp, Freedom’s Road (Universal Republic):
John Mellencamp returns to his roots — well, to the sound of his best records, anyway — with the fine but flawed Freedom’s Road. Musically, Mellencamp has been a restless soul over the years, straying into folk and country, fleshing out his sound but not always succeeding in his experiments. Since finding his voice with Uh-Huh, he has yet to make a bad record and has made a couple of great ones.
At his best, he is a heartland populist who writes touching and angry songs about average people caught in the vortex of a changing America. This album comes straight out of that sensibility with some of the strongest rock music — backed by the country band Little Big Town — he’s made in years.
At the same time, however, the album falls flat too often lyrically — he gets preachy and telly on too many songs (“Soemtimes” and “The Americans,” for instance, are good songs with unsatisfying lyrics). At the same time, however, there are lyrical gems — “Foregiveness” is simple, melding perfectly into the music, while “Jim Crow” and “Rural Route” are downright scary.
All told, Freedom’s Road is a record of connection and a demand for accountability at a time when we need it.
All Music Guide review here.
Other thoughts:
That song — “Flathead” — on the iPod commercial is by a Scottish rave up band called The Fratellis, who sound a little like T Rex, a little like The Records on speed, a little like the Pretty Things. Great stuff.
Also great is the new disc from Gina Villalabosa — Miles Away (on Face West Records, originally released in the UK and Australia on Laughing Outlaw) — is in the Lucinda Williams vein, though not on the same level, with a little of the new Dixie Chicks and early Sheryl Crow tossed in. Musically, it moves along the seem between rock and country — big electric guitars, some pedal steel, a bit of shimmer. She’s not going to be the next big thing, but she’s worth a listen (“Face in the Sheets” is worth the purchase by itself).
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Hank Kalet 