I've really come to love this album, though I'll confess it was slow to grow on me. For once thing, if you are in the mood for something upbeat and energetic, this isn't going to be your album. It is quiet, somber, reflective,...
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I've really come to love this album, though I'll confess it was slow to grow on me. For once thing, if you are in the mood for something upbeat and energetic, this isn't going to be your album. It is quiet, somber, reflective, minimalistic. There are albums that have gripped me on a first hearing, but more often than not they tend to fade in appeal as time goes by. This is a "difficult" album, but once you penetrate the apparent lack of diversity and instead the come to appreciate the subtle variations from one song to another, it can possess at a far deeper level than more accessible but ultimately more superficial ones. This is music stripped down to essentials. I have been alternatively listening to this and a superb Teenage Fan Club album, and while I love both, the differences between the two couldn't be starker. Teenage Fan Club hates empty space, to the extent of layering sound upon sound to produce a many layered, astonishingly dense result. Chan Marshall, the artist who is Cat Power, not only is comfortable with silence within the music, she seems to quietly cultivate it. Her songs are filled with spaces, and adds in new strands of sound only hesitatingly. If a piano, a single guitar, and a backing vocal get the job done, why add in drums or bass? Or even get rid of the guitar or piano. The only way for the album to get any sparser would be for Marshall to sing the whole thing a capella. The effect of all this is to focus all the attention on the lyrics and the emotions Marshall is evoking. The result sometimes feels almost more like confessional therapy than music, an attempt to put raw emotional experience into a form in which it can be confronted and absorbed. I couldn't recommend this album more strongly for listeners who are patient and comfortable with subtle music that reveals its treasures only slowly. Comment | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this)
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