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| Bluesy country with Lucinda's soul-baring lyrics & heart-tugging vocals. Essence, Lonely Girls, I Envy The Wind, Bus To Baton Rouge, Are You Down?, etc. |
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| 1 Lonely Girls |
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| 2 Steal Your Love |
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| 3 I Envy the Wind |
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| 4 Blue |
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| 5 Out of Touch |
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| 6 Are You Down |
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| 7 Essence |
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| 8 Reason to Cry |
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| 9 Get Right With God |
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| 10 Bus to Baton Rouge |
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| 11 Broken Butterflies |
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Album Review
Between her well-documented determination to retail full control of her music and the plain-spoken willfulness of her best-known songs, Lucinda Williams is practically the working definition of a strong woman you do not want to mess with, but she reveals a very different side of her musical personality on her sixth album, "Essence". Subtle and often stark, "Essence" is an unusually quiet and frequently downbeat set that depicts a fragile emotional vulnerability which rarely makes its presence felt in Williams' music; there's an unadorned longing in songs like "Blue" and "Lonely Girls" that's new and deeply affecting, and the leaf-in-the-breeze quaver of Williams' voice on "I Envy The Wind" is as heart-rending as anything she's ever committed to tape. But while a blue mood dominates "Essence", this isn't an album about the blue funk of heartbreak, but a chronicle of the search for transcendence over sorrow in our lives, as her characters look for a path out of isolation ("Out Of Touch"), try to find answers through faith ("Get Right With God"), or reconcile love with the desires of the flesh ("Essence"). As a songwriter, Williams has long shown a knack for charting the human heart and mind with intelligence and economy, and "Essence" finds her at the peak of her form; the delicacy of this music does not speak of weakness, but of the passion and bravery it takes to bare one's soul. And while Williams has gained a certain infamy for her obsessive perfectionism in the studio, the quality of her work speaks for the wisdom of her decision-making process, and "Essence" proves how well she understands the art of recording; producing in collaboration with Charlie Sexton (Tom Tucker and Bo Ramsey also contributed), "Essence" sounds full and rich even in its quietest moments, and her sweet-and-sour voice blends with the arrangements with subtle perfection. Those hoping for another dose of the bluesy roots rock of "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" may be disappointed, but if you want to take a deep and compelling look into the heart and soul of a major artist, then you owe it to yourself to hear "Essence". ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide
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• Biography
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Other albums by: Lucinda Williams |
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