“New female singer songwriter” is right up there with “new Limp Bizkit album” when it comes to making sensible music fans blanch, but Martha Wainwright has just enough talent and charm to make this debut worth your attention.
Although most people have so far compared Martha to her famous brother Rufus, Wainwright actually makes more sense when considered in the light of her folk music parents. Certainly the gentle, breezy atmosphere of the record owes a debt to folk, while the viciousness of many of the lyrics (particularly the rather direct “Bloody Mother F*cking A*shole”) deal with the after effects of her hippie childhood.
Wainwright’s great talent is the ability to wrap up the most acerbic of lyrics in a smoky, dreamy haze. If you neglect to listen to lyrics as vicious as “she’s getting a degree in f*cking you”, it would be easy to believe she was singing about the weather or a good book she’s recently read. Indeed, Wainwright is at her best when there’s fire in her belly, as on the dramatic, squalling “Ball And Chain” and the aforementioned “Bloody Mother F*cking A*shole”. When she relaxes a little more – as on the meandering “TV Show”, or the derivative acoustic strumalong of “My Life” – the results can be at best pleasant, at worst soporific.
The other reason to find time for this record is Wainwright’s quite lovely voice. This has been predictably compared to the likes of Joni Mitchell, but in fact sounds much more like the similarly inclined Tanya Donnelly. It’s a voice that can leap, dive and charm at will, a smoky, rich beauty that makes even a workmanlike concoction of slide and acoustic guitar like “Who Was I Kidding” intriguing. On a superior song, like the melancholic, wistful love song “Far Away”, it sounds simply irresistible.
The most inventive things here are “The Maker”, which has a gorgeous looping melody, and the closing “Whither Must I Wander”, which has the fussy title and peculiar phrasing more usually found on her brothers records. Elsewhere, “Martha Wainwright” is a confident and accomplished debut, and a pleasant, agreeable diversion. It will shame nobody’s record collections but nor is it likely to be a crowning touch.
