Lucinda’s precarious love life has informed her music for over 20 years, but the Americana queen deals with another, more profound, kind of loss on her subdued new collection. Her mother died not long after 2003’s World Without Tears, and is remembered here with great affection on Mama You Sweet and the eloquent, contemplative Fancy Funeral.
The latter can be read as West’s pivotal moment, with Williams taking stock of her world as she moves into her 50s. Failed relationships inevitably come under the microscope, with regret on the tender Are You Alright? and thinly-veiled contempt on the raging Come On. Nakedly honest, West is a more personal set compared to 1998’s third-person Car Wheels On A Gravel Road. There’s little of the hard-edged rural rock-outs of that album, due largely to the delicate ambience of Hal Wilner’s production.
Williams asks herself some tough questions, while also challenging her listeners. But it ends on a positive note, with the title track (“Who knows what the future holds?”) recounting how�the singer may have – finally – found The One to spend her life with. Perhaps then, West can be read as the closing chapters of one emotionally ravaging book, and the opening pages of a much happier one.
