All Hail The Queen

West is an album to scare St. Valentine right out of his red and pink boxer shorts:

West ain't Car Wheels On A Gravel Road, but not too many records are, not even any of the other albums made by its creator, Lucinda Williams. Produced by Hal Wilner, West, is Williams eighth album in almost thirty years and finds the singer-sufferer-songwriter digging back into the material that has made her a darling of not only critics and alt-country fans but people that like to come across words and characters that are not normally captured in a song but usually are found within a short story.

The album takes a listener up and down, high and low, but don't be fooled because if West is a roller coaster it is mostly heading South and fast so don't let anyone on line tell you otherwise, not even Williams who on the title track tells her man to head out West because "who knows what the future holds or where the cards may fall." Her optimism, as sincere as it may be, is not to be beleived if the rest of West is to be factored in.

From discussing traveling plans and desires, Williams moves on to other, more carnal solitications. The singer, on Unsuffer Me starts off sounding as if she's that woman, at the bar, who with too much drink begins coming on to a guy she has only just met. By the song's conclusion, either the guy didn't mind her advances and they know each other a bit better or Williams (and her voice) got used to all that alcohol, maybe even sobering up a bit.

The quick fix of Unsuffer Me may not be enough for the narrator and on Everything Has Changed, Williams is once again searching for her joy (as on CWGR). Without much fanfare, the songstress discovers you cannot always find what you have lost nor most heartbreakingly what you most need. This is Williams' signature as of late.

West, besides displaying the strongest rasp Williams has ever laid down on tape also displays Williams uncanny and growing ability to write about men and women who find themselves in relationships. Though she ends up telling the man in Come On to fuck off there was obviously a good reason for her to do so and the Crazy Horse-ish melody and tempo makes the song all the more interesting. Williams as a few men must know can really give a guy a good shellacking when she feels like it.

The song Where Is My Love? could have been answered by Come On but even so it's a keeper and worth the gate price. Set to a slow and drifting melody with a simple drum patter, Williams searches the South for her man (you knew we weren't really heading West), painting lucid images at every stop of textbook fairytale romance. Aided by violin, smokey and drawn out vocals and the cracks and turns of Williams' voice, the singer takes a simple sentence or stanza and make it gutwrenching. "Is My Love In Tupelo, Whispering Down The Blues?" is just such a line and makes one think that perhaps Lucinda can't keep a love for herself but she sure as hell can record the sound of it.

As an avid listener and fan of Lucinda Williams you can't really help but hope Williams doesn't ever find what she has been searching for all these years. For if she got her wish and found her special someone what then would compel her to keep writing and what would tempt that voice to breath into a microphone? That's a harsh thought to conjure up out of one's skull but maybe you and her could forgive me this one time since it was only produced out of it's own kind of love.

West is not the sequal to Car Wheels that many crave and unfairly expect. Lucinda Williams is smart to stay clear of such territory as matching the achievement of that album would be near impossible. Even so, Williams' new album takes the style of songs featured on her post Car Wheel albums and brings it up to a new level. The songs are mostly sad and the narrator is one we feel sorry for but all in all it is a strong album and one that should not be tossed aside lightly. On this Valentine's Day, here's hoping Williams is happy, but please don't get too used to the feeling.

Where Is My Love