A few years back, Mary Gauthier played the Narrows. Since then, she's signed to a major label and her new album, Mercy Now, received high praise from Rollingstone.com. Here's the review:
As a singer, Mary Gauthier could pass for Lucinda Williams' twin sister: Gauthier's voice, like Williams', is a chewy Dixie drawl scarred with experience. And as a songwriter, Gauthier, like Williams, has bloomed in adulthood. She wrote her first song at thirty-five, after a long trip up from rock bottom. Now, at forty-two, after a run of acclaimed independent albums, Gauthier makes her major-label debut with the country-gothic suspense of Mercy Now. She's brought some vintage darkness: "I Drink," which she first cut in 1999, is about the bottle the way Lou Reed's "Heroin" is about the needle: precise and moving in its emotional journalism. She also puts the same care into the leaving and being left behind detailed in newer songs like "Falling Out of Love" and "Drop in a Bucket." Sustained despair is an acquired taste, and Mercy Now rarely moves at more than funeral-ballad speed. Yet the life and longing in Gauthier's voice puts color in these shadows. "I was born lonesome, and I'm lonesome still," she sings at the end, with the true grit of one still not ready to give in.
As a singer, Mary Gauthier could pass for Lucinda Williams' twin sister: Gauthier's voice, like Williams', is a chewy Dixie drawl scarred with experience. And as a songwriter, Gauthier, like Williams, has bloomed in adulthood. She wrote her first song at thirty-five, after a long trip up from rock bottom. Now, at forty-two, after a run of acclaimed independent albums, Gauthier makes her major-label debut with the country-gothic suspense of Mercy Now. She's brought some vintage darkness: "I Drink," which she first cut in 1999, is about the bottle the way Lou Reed's "Heroin" is about the needle: precise and moving in its emotional journalism. She also puts the same care into the leaving and being left behind detailed in newer songs like "Falling Out of Love" and "Drop in a Bucket." Sustained despair is an acquired taste, and Mercy Now rarely moves at more than funeral-ballad speed. Yet the life and longing in Gauthier's voice puts color in these shadows. "I was born lonesome, and I'm lonesome still," she sings at the end, with the true grit of one still not ready to give in.
Submitted by Steve the Emcee, who reads Rolling Stone on-line, but is too cheap to buy the magazine.
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