There are reasons that a body stays in motion
But at the moment, only demons come to mind.
Carlile’s music kind of stands at the intersection of folk, rock & country, I suppose; the Grammys considered it an Americana album, not that I know what that even means. Regardless of all that, it’s quite good. Carlile’s vocals are really emotionally raw and I’m really impressed by her range. I don’t mean the range of notes she can hit, but the range of genres she’s able to really nail with her voice. This album features raspy blues songs, straight-ahead rockers, quiet introspective songs and the occasional anthemic ballad and she pulls them all off with aplomb. The songs are variable, though there’s only one genuinely awful song on the record, the godawful Hold Out Your Hand. Others, like the cheesy inspirational ballad The Joke or the string-drenched weeper Party of One, are fine for what they are. But the album has a lot of great stuff on it too and there’s a four song run in the middle of the album that’s just insanely strong. The two best songs on the record are The Mother and Fulton County Jane Doe. The Mother is a song dedicated to Carlile’s youngest daughter and it’s a melancholy ode to all of the struggles of motherhood and the myriad joys that outweigh them. It’s the kind of song that could easily be saccharine, but Carlile’s lyrics are sharply witty and the melody is beautiful, so the song really lands with an emotional punch. Fulton County Jane Doe is a song inspired by a real murder victim that has remained unidentified in the decades since her body was discovered. It’s a heartfelt song and one that doesn’t fall into the despair you might expect. This isn’t the most consistent album, but when Carlile is on point, she’s really on point. Occasionally the lyrics are pedestrian and cliched, but when they’re not, they’re genuinely superlative. And Carlile is undeniably always totally committed so even some of the cliched lyrics work because of the strength of her soulful vocals. There’s a song or two to skip here, but there are songs that you’ll carry the rest of your life too. 3 ½ stars.
tl;dr – a somewhat inconsistent album has a couple of real stinkers, but also more than a couple real masterpieces; sharp lyrics and soulful vocals combine to create an often superlative record. 3 ½ stars.