GRETCHEN PETERS - HELLO CRUEL WORLD
Proper Records

Better known as songwriter than performer in a genre that still likes to separate the two out, Gretchen Peters has nonetheless recorded several albums in the last fifteen years, though this is the first one to come my way. And it’s pretty impressive stuff – less country than Americana, if you care to make that distinction, with a collection of acoustically driven, quiet, insular explorations that has an emotional honesty that is admirable.

The result is an album of genuine beauty, where music and lyrics combine with Peters’ pitch-perfect delivery to create something pretty special. If the opening title track is a song of defiance, then others like Saint Francis and Five Minutes are haunting explorations of mortality and human frailty. Paradise Found is a bluesy, none-too-subtle celebration of sexuality, while Woman on the Wheel uses the persona of a circus performer to explore fears about relationships and the future. Natural Disaster mixes a tale of environmental and emotional chaos and the damage that both can do.

These are just a few moments from an album that is pretty much flawless – albeit one that is sometimes almost too raw for comfort. But if you admire honesty over superficiality, then you will find much to admire here.

On Dark Angel, a duet with Rodney Crowell that celebrates life over promises of an afterlife, Peters sings “life is still a beautiful disaster”, and one worth living. Can’t argue with that, and records this good make that living a lot more pleasurable.

DAVID FLINT

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