I haven't followed Martha Wainwright's career as closely as I have her brother Rufus and father Louden's. I'm aware of the nature of her voice and style so listening to her latest album Love Will Be Reborn yesterday didn't surprise me much but I did enjoy the experience.
She's not really an easy listening artist. Her songs are turbulent things of struggle and unease, as she puts it in opening track Middle of the Lake she specialises in little songs of 'love and pain.' By this point of her career she is, as you'd expect, very good at what she does.
So as I've said my lack of familiarity with her back catalogue make me unable to place it in comparison with what has come before but this is certainly well worth a listen. This apparently is the soundtrack of divorce and rebirth and it certainly sounds like it. She does the experience justice. Some of the notes she hits and the anguished moods of joy and anguish she taps into are rather extraordinary.
In some ways the artist I'd compare her with is neither her brother or father but Jeff Buckley. Love Will Be Reborn is full of the durm and strang that so characterised Grace.
So, not an album to put on when your aunt comes round perhaps but a rewarding record nonetheless. The title track in particular is exceptional and none of its bedfellows let the side down. She's a craftswoman who may never quite get the credit she's due. I'll go back from here.
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