Listening with an open mind. Writing about what I hear.
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Album Review: Lucinda Williams - Good Souls Better Angels
The writer of “Passionate Kisses” and one of the few deserved Grammy winners out there (assuming a Grammy denotes some actual level of quality, which is a HUGE assumption) is back with her fourteenth studio album, Good Souls Better Angels. The album continuing in the vein of her most recent releases, 2016’s Ghost of Highway 20 and 2017’s This Sweet Old World, combining traditional hard-edged folk revival and Americana, with roots and garage rock. Her work has become darker and more rife with shadows as of late and Good Souls Better Angels is no exception. The defiant "You Can't Rule Me" and the thumping “Bad News Blues” start this weather, saddle-back companion and dusty soundtrack off with a growly blues and bluster stomp. Later selections help to show off Williams's continued range as a songwriter without shaking any of the grit out of her boots. “Man Without A Soul” is a surprisingly warm sounding alternative country amble about the men of avarice who rule this land and the status clingers and grubbers who keep them on their thrones. “Shadows & Doubts” is a minimalistic and reflective gospel number, while “Good Souls” is just Williams and her guitar telling it like it is. One of my favorites tracks off this album is “Pray the Devil Back to Hell,” which is a burst of country-soul with gut-churning guitar distortion and ominously reedy string arrangements cut through the mix like fish bones pushed through warm candle wax. You don't need to hear it from me that Williams still has "it," this much is self-evident. Whatever "it" is, she embodies it like a raging river.
