Album review: Martha Wainwright - Come Home To Mama
The most straight-talking of the Wainwright warblers gets distracted by the pop pound on an album exploring life’s big moments.
Written over a pivotal transition in her life - the birth of her first son Arcangelo, and the death of her mother, folk legend Kate McGarrigle, shortly after - Come Home To Mama finds Martha in reflective mood.
The blunt, visceral songwriting has been tempered with a silkier, pop aesthetic.
It’s perhaps producer Yuka Honda’s influence that provides quirky pop appeal, from the offbeat sounds of Some People (possibly with sedated theramin) and the taut, 80’s-influenced I Wanna Make An Arrest to the synth pinpricks shooting light through the widescreen swoon of Four Black Sheep.
Nevertheless her confessional, upfront lyricism survives here and there.
You may also want to watch:
The bittersweet Can You Believe It is the Martha of old, brass and slide guitar lightly dressing acoustic guitar and opening with ‘I really like the make-up sex, its the only kind i ever get’.
Elsewhere, Proserpina is a poised, classic piano ballad that’s too restrained to get under the skin, but the plush title track is powered by soft piano, violins and Martha’s lovely voice, and Everything Wrong closes the set with profound lyrics and emotion.
Most Read
- 1 Six flee Finsbury Park house fire
- 2 Obituary: 'Striking and beautiful' north London mother Mary Collins
- 3 Historic pub The Cuckoo ready to welcome locals inside after refurbishment
- 4 Islington Council backtracks on promise to save mulberry tree
- 5 Reaction from winners of Islington by-elections
- 6 Upper Street chef raises money for St Vincent volcano victims
- 7 Islington Boxing Club receives a major boost in fundraising campaign
- 8 'Massive stabbing' in Old Street: Man attacked outside Moorfields Hospital
- 9 Masks scrapped 'as early as next month' and over 35s jabs 'soon'
- 10 Trial halted after Extinction Rebellion protester glues himself to the dock
Its pop bent might rankle with diehard Martha fans, but this is a solid, if not exceptional, evolution.
3 stars
