Rating: 4/5
Review:
A good album
This is a good album from Marianne Faithfull. Her voice is cracked
and broken now and she half-sings, half-speaks some of the time, but
she can still put a song across with real power and feeling so the
effect is very poignant.
The material is a
mixture, but by and large it is quite sad, it is sometimes bleak and
it has a very valedictory feel; in Born To Live she actually sings of
praying for a good death, for example. It’s a mixture of some new
songs reflecting (not cheerfully, it must be said) on the state of
the world and of her life now, and of the old, like Witches Song,
Dylan’s It’s All Over Now Baby Blue and a very potent reworking
of her first hit as a 16-year-old, As Tears Go By. It’s all very
well done; Marianne Faithfull puts herself fully into each song and
the production is largely restrained and pitch-perfect throughout, I
think.
Negative Capability
sounds like a farewell, although I hope it isn’t. Don’t go
looking for happy, melodious pop here; this is a haunting, sometimes
scarily honest album which drew me in and hasn’t let me go.
Perhaps it’s not a classic of Broken English stature but it’s a
good album with real depth to it. Recommended.
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