Gretchen Peters - Blackbirds

  by Malcolm Carter

published: 22 / 2 / 2015

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Review

There’s still hope for daytime radio in the UK. A number of times recently one of the tracks from Gretchen Peters’ eighth studio album, namely ‘When All You Got is a Hammer’, has been heard shaking up the airwaves on morning weekday programs on BBC’s Radio Two. Given that Peters has recently been inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall Of Fame and has had her songs covered by Martina McBride, Trisha Yearwood and Patty Loveless in the past, it shouldn’t really come as any great surprise that she should make the playlists. The main theme of ‘Blackbirds’ is, however, mortality, and, while the aforementioned song isn’t as dark as some of the others on the album, it is a tale of a demobbed soldier trying to cope with civilian life again. Hearing the song between the fluffy dross played either side of its airing stops the listener dead in their tracks. It’s then you realize that just once in a while songs are aired that make you want to actually listen to what’s being played. As with the other songs on ‘Blackbird’, Peters’ little details scattered throughout the song really paint a full picture. The song opens with the lines, “There’s a bible on the table/There’s a bottle on the shelf/There’s a woman in the kitchen crying quietly to herself”, before the simmering rage that underlines the track reveals that “when all you got is a hammer everything looks like a nail.” The arrangement and production of the song are brilliant, fitting the desolation in the lyrics perfectly. No excuses are made for quoting more lyrics - “They show you how to shoot and they show you how to kill/They don’t show you what to do with this hole that you can’t fill”; You don’t have to be ex-military to relate to those lyrics, most people can relate to the point Peters is making. As the Clash once sang, “it blows a hole in the radio when it hasn’t sounded good all week”. But moving on from that track, Peters last album, ‘Hello Cruel World’ from 2012 was considered by some to be the album of her career; as good as that collection is that’s a statement that no longer rings true. The title song of this latest album, which tops and tails the set with two different versions, must surely rate as one of Peters’ best compositions of all time. Like much of the album, it’s a brooding atmospheric piece of music, a murder ballad in fact, which even if the music on the first version wasn’t so evocative on its own would still send chills down your back as soon as you took in the lyrics. The slower, more stripped down version that closes the album is slightly more chilling, the lyrics even more unsettling in this setting. While the atmosphere created by ‘The House on Auburn Street’ is not as unsettling, and the burning down is symbolic rather than the actual flames that swirled in that title song, again Peters weaves a fascinating tale looking back on her childhood. ‘Pretty Things’ although blessed with a pretty, gentle melody, displays Peters’ skill with lyrics again - “I knew a girl who said beauty killed/Dulled the pain with wine and pills/Took that slow ride down the hill to nowhere.” The sweetness of the melody and musical accompaniment are meanwhile at odds with each other. The piano-led ‘Everything Falls Away’ is a touching tribute to one who has passed. Ageing and death hang heavily over this album, but few can touch on such subjects as eloquently as Peters does here. There are lighter pieces though. If not always lyrically, then the sounds that Peters and her chosen musicians frame these stories in are not all totally dark. The duet with Jimmy LaFave, ‘When You Comin’ Home’, despite the longing in the lyrics, is given light and hope by the use of banjo and harmonica. ‘Jubilee’ is another song where Peters reflects on mortality, but lines such as “my body’s broken but not my soul/You know it’s love and only love that’s made me whole” give a sense of redemption. When Peters sings, “I’m an orphan, 30 years old/You know I miss my father’s voice and my mother’s arms” you feel the sadness in her vocals all too well. ‘Black Ribbons’ is a co-write with Matraca Berg and Suzy Bogguss who add their harmonies to the song that tells the tale of a fisherman laying his wife to rest after the BP oil disaster. Again the array of instruments used breathes as much life into the song as the lyrics and those obviously perfect harmonies do. ‘The Cure for the Pain’ is a heartbreaking look at someone close fading away, the stripped back accompaniment adding a further haunting quality. Other major artists, mainly male, have used the themes of ageing and death to create some of their best work and now we can add Gretchen Peters to that list. ‘Blackbirds’ is an album that you just can’t leave alone. While it may not immediately be apparent that Peters has turned out the best album of a long career with ‘Blackbirds’, on that first play there’s something that keeps pulling you back to these songs and by the third or fourth listen you’re hooked. Peters has constantly surprised us with her music but with ‘Blackbirds’ she really is at the top of her game.

Track Listing:-

1 Blackbirds
2 Pretty Things
3 When All You Got Is a Hammer
4 Everything Falls Away
5 The House on Auburn Street
6 When You Comin' Home
7 Jubilee
8 Black Ribbons
9 Nashville
10 The Cure for the Pain
11 Blackbirds (Reprise)
12 If Heaven
13 The Secret of Life
14 On a Bus to St. Cloud
15 Independence Day

Band Links:-

https://www.facebook.com/gretchenpeter
http://www.gretchenpeters.com/
https://twitter.com/gretchenpeters

Label Links:-

http://www.proper-records.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/ProperRecords
https://twitter.com/ProperRecords
https://www.youtube.com/user/propertv
http://www.properdistribution.com/
http://instagram.com/properblog