Dan DaranciangCat Power
“The Greatest”
Grade: 4 stars (out of 5)
Songs to download: “The Greatest,” “Willie,” “Love & Communication”
For fans of: PJ Harvey, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen
Thirty-five years after Leonard Cohen’s “Songs of Love and Hate,” Chan Marshall (Cat Power) has produced her own album of love and hate. The result, “The Greatest,” is her best effort since 2003’s “You are Free” and perhaps the best release of the young year.
Though the haunting, deep vocals once again steal the show, “The Greatest” is far from an instrumental slouch, and Chan Marshall is far from just a simple folk singer. Recorded in Memphis, Tenn., with accompaniment by a virtual all-star team of session musicians, including guitarist Mabon “Teenie” Hodges, the album is a sprawling and beautiful mixture of instruments, tempos, styles and emotions.
Together, Marshall’s three best songs highlight the album’s depth. The title track, which opens the album, is a slow and jazzy number. About a boy who desires to become a great boxer, it exhibits tasteful piano chords interchanged with sighing violins as Marshall’s stunningly somber lyric, “Once I wanted to BE the greatest,” repeats itself, the song’s last word echoed back to her by distant back-up vocals.
The sparseness of the opening track is soon followed by a succession of songs alternating in tempo and style. “Willie,” which appears in the middle of the album, particularly stands out. Soulful and sad, it features her best songwriting on the album, with a simple yet powerful narrative worthy of Springsteen: “Willie Deadwilder and Rebecca / they knew that they loved one another,” she begins. “Gonna have a real good time / no more sad bad times.” Like a Springsteen or Leonard Cohen song, of course, the promise of the opening lines soon turns to the pain of violence and tragedy.
In “Love & Communication,” which closes the album, Marshall introduces new textures. The soft and simple chord progression of the preceding track (not incidentally called “Hate”) transitions into an electric sound filled with bluesy guitar riffs and piano melodies. This last track marks the closest approximation to the musical intensity Marshall mobilized in “He War” on her 2003 album.
And while “The Greatest” fails to reach the thematic heights of “You Are Free,” it nonetheless marks a development in Cat Power from stripped-down folk singing to full-fledged musicianship.