release date: Aug. 20, 2021
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,72]
producer: Pierre Marchand
label: Cooking Vinyl - nationality: Canada
Track highlights: 1. "Middle of the Lake" - 2. "Getting Older" - 3. "Love Will Be Reborn" (4 / 5) - 6. "Body and Soul" - 7. "Hole in My Heart" - 9. "Sometimes" - 11. "Falaise de malaise"
5th studio album by Martha Wainwright as follow-up to her 2016 album Goodnight City is with a new producer in the form of Pierre Marchand, who is known for his work with musicians within singer / songwriter and folk music, such as Sarah McLachlan, but also Kate & Anna McGarrigle (Kate is Martha's mother), Rufus Wainwright (Martha's brother), as well as Daniel Lanois and Lhasa de Sela. Nearly five years is a very long time in between releases, and Martha Wainwright has never been the one to spit out albums like others do, but here she is back with 11 of her very own compositions as she last did with Come Home to Mama in 2012. Since 2016, she has gone through a divorce from former musical partner and regular producer Brad Albetta, and she has had to reconcile with the role of a single mother of two, which may also have a significant impact on the musical drought. If nothing else, the existential challenges have been food for several of the new songs, such as the title track, "Getting Older", "Hole in My heart" and "Falais de malaise" are clear examples of.
The cover quite nicely reflects the title with Wainwright sitting as if in a waiting position, ready in her fine dress to turn towards a new love. Musically, there is no revolutionary news, but the music has generally become more subdued with several songs in the singer / songwriter style without a lot of frills in the shape of synths and other electronic equipment. It's occasionally alt-country, it's naked and honest, and the album appears to be her most complete since the more poppier I Know You're Married but I've Got Feelings Too from 2008. She has never been shy about writing openly about her own life, about challenges with parents, family, and especially love - the broken and the new, but the songs here appear as her most mature, where self-reflection has been given more space than before, and where it mostly was an issue of pointing outwards rather than seeing inward. Also, and for once, she sounds more like herself than all possible others.
Recommended.
