Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 12/05/08
Label: Drowned In Sound

Martha Wainwright's self-titled 2005 debut is, by most right-thinking people's reckoning, a modern classic: a singularly bold, compassionate and memorable statement from a songwriter seemingly immune to banality or cliché. So pungently did that album evoke the highs and lows of life as freewheeling, self-examining singleton, that some fans worried Wainwright's recent marriage to producer Brad Albetta would herald a softer approach. Kind of, we know she's married but we've got feelings too. So has it?

Not really. While there's no "Bloody Motherf*cking As*hole" this time around (her notorious spleen-vent at father Loudon Wainwright III), the Canadian-American boho remains as feisty and red-blooded as ever, her hewn-from-marble voice - part-cowgirl part-Patti Smith - crooning and bawling tales of feckless lads and late night disappointments. This is typified by uncompromising opener "Bleeding All Over You" - a number whose deceptively pastoral Buffalo Springfield stylings belie lyrics of unrequited passion and bitter envy.

As ever, what nails it are the specifics: "You moved up north and got a farmhouse / I'm trapped between two buildings and having to start at the start." Why do so few lyricists get this? Wainwright must wonder this too because then there's "Hearts Club Band", a slow, brooding number about leaving both a band and its singer, which delivers a slap to the ego of over-precious singing studs everywhere: "You wrote a song a day / And they were always words that made me want to say shut up!"

The gothic-bluesy howl of "In The Middle Of The Night" (featuring brother Rufus), which sounds heavily inspired by PJ Harvey's "Stories From the City, Stories From The Sea", tackles the complex emotions triggered by her mother's cancer with its sinister repeated howl: "In the middle of the night / Comes a knocking at my door / There's a limousine outside and I know who it's for".

Elsewhere, however, Wainwright does take significant strides away from her debut. She makes an unashamed bid for blanket radio play (and wholly deserves it) with party-starting, Springsteen-as-a-girl country-rocker "Comin' Tonight" about an ex-lover whose band is coming to her home town, and best of all the razor sharp "You Cheated Me" (featuring Pete Townshend), whose tetchy angular verse melts deliciously with a smooth, singalong chorus.

The clan assembles for a crisp, perky cover of Pink Floyd's "See Emily Play" - mother Kate McGarrigle, aunt McGarrigle and first cousin Lily Lanken before closing with "I Wish I Were" (featuring The Band's Garth Hudson), an almost spoken-word piece in which the music steps right back to showcase the nuances of her remarkable voice. It's a disappointingly low-key and tremulous finale to what is a rich and rewarding album. If we were her, we'd have stuck in some jubilatory car horns.

    by Anna Britten