Category Archives: 2011 music reviews

by

Lucinda Williams – Blessed

Befriending Lucinda Williams might be hazardous to your health. Her albums are littered with songs about loved ones lost to suicide and disease. She mourns beautifully.

Williams’ newest release, Blessed, features two such tracks. The first is the wistful, poetic ‘Copenhagen,’ describing the moment she learned, while traveling abroad, about her manager’s sudden death. The second is ‘Seeing Black,’ an angry response to the suicide of her friend Vic Chesnutt.

Elsewhere, in ‘Soldier’s Song,’ she contrasts the experiences of an enlisted man in a war zone with that of his wife and child back home. It doesn’t end well for the soldier.

Continue reading →

by

R.E.M. – Collapse Into Now

“20th century, collapse into now,” Michael Stipe says in the final moments of R.E.M.’s latest album, Collapse Into Now. And it’s a fitting coda, as this album feels like a look back at all the things R.E.M. did so well in the 80s and 90s.

It’s been 13 years since drummer Bill Berry left the band, and Collapse Into Now is the closest they’ve come since to sounding like who they used to be. It doesn’t come close to the heights of their best work — how could it? — but it’s a rewarding listen that suggests 2008’s blistering Accelerate was indeed the wake-up call it sounded like.

Continue reading →