Lucinda Williams

Lucinda Williams long ago secured her rightful reputation as a pioneer of alt-country and an expert in the art of remorseful and lovelorn tales of woe. Professionally, she's a renowned perfectionist, having blown through multiple years and multiple producers while making her breakthrough album, 1998's Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.

Little Honey flips the script, arriving just a year and a half after her last album and, lo and behold, finding our protagonist deeply in love (with co-producer Tom Overby). And not just any ol' love, as Williams makes clear on the opening track "Real Love." Sometimes an artist's joy can be an audience's pain, but Little Honey doesn't sacrifice her high artistic standard. Besides, fans of the heartbreak still don't have to look far; her current bliss is tied inextricably to past pain. On the bluesy "Tears of Joy," her appreciation of her new lover is enhanced by considering all of the ill-fated relationships in her rearview mirror. The lovely, stripped-down acoustic ballad "Plan To Marry" wonders about how people can find love in the face of overwhelming personal and global tragedies–then answers its own question. With the reverb turned up on Williams, the performance sounds live in the listener's headphones or speakers. It's a beautiful moment and would have been a powerful way to close the album. Instead, it cedes the floor to an awkward country-gospel cover of AC/DC's "It's A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)," a choice made all the more confounding by the revelation that Williams was completely unfamiliar with the song prior to recording it. The band sounds like they're having fun, but it's a pedestrian way to close–and Williams, for all her twangy grit, ain't no Bon Scott.

Taking a timeout from love, "Little Rock Star" sympathetically addresses itself to the wayward Winehouses and Dohertys of the world. Two high-profile guests contribute to a lively pair of old-timey numbers: Charlie Louvin on "Well Well Well" and Elvis Costello on "Jailhouse Tears," a back-and-forth between a no-good criminal and his wronged woman. Williams does an excellent job with the track sequence, shifting moods without disrupting momentum or making the album feel disjointed, despite the presence of polar opposite tracks like the ragged, sexed-up rocker "Honey Bee" (a lowlight) and the emotionally rich "Wishes Were Horses" (a highlight), a track that's been lingering for decades waiting for the right album.

—Adam McKibbin
10.17.08

Lucinda Williams has made a career of writing terrific unrequited love songs, shattered ballads, and sexually liberated tomes drenched in blues, country, folk and rock. Since her breakthrough on 1998's Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, she's actually recorded quite regularly; Little Honey is her fourth studio album this decade so far and fifth overall -- in the '90s she released a total of two. Williams throws some more change-ups into the mix this time. For starters, this is the most polished and studied record she's ever made. Produced by Eric Liljestrand and Tom Overby, its sound is utterly contemporary, though its forms are rooted in electric '70s rock as well as her fallbacks on blues and old-school Americana. The set opens with the rollicking "Real Love," with jangling, charging guitars by Doug Pettibone, and Rob Burger on Wurlitzer, and a backing chorus held down by the Bangles' Susanna Hoffs and Matthew Sweet. Its pop/rock bent is tempered by the roiling pace and Williams trademark Louisiana voice. But it's a startling introduction to an album that, while produced with a certain conscious flair, is the most loosely focused of her career in terms of her songwriting.

Williams can still write the beautiful cut-time country tunes, such as the ballad "Circles and X's" and the honky tonk "Jailhouse Tears," a fun throwaway duet with Elvis Costello, and a backing chorus that includes Jim Lauderdale. The blues make their appearance on the beautiful "Tears of Joy" and the appropriately titled "Heaven Blues," a song that references her late mother and redemption, with excellent slide work by Pettibone. Greasy, punched up guitar rock is what fuels the sexually charged "Honey Bee," and a cover of AC/DC's "Long Way to the Top" (though her arrangement on the latter doesn't work). There's also the beautiful, but lyrically indulgent, "Little Rock Star" a warning to the unnamed talents who live in the self-made hell of excess. Williams should know. The album's longest cut is "Rarity," a poignantly gorgeous, heartfelt, cough-syrup tribute to an unnamed but very talented peer. It features Hoffs and Sweet, and a lovely gospel horn arrangement by Bruce Fowler. Its languid, lazy pace is atmospheric and draws itself out over eight minutes making for one of the most memorable moments here. Quoting Williams' lyrics out of context doesn't serve for this record, because they are more directly song lyrics than the poetry she's crafted in song form before. Upon first listen Little Honey is quite jarring for all of its textural and production shifts and dodges, but in time it settles into the listener as a mixed collection of decent songs that pack some punch, but no jaw-dropping wallops. The faithful will no doubt enjoy this set, but the novice should look to earlier albums to discover what all the critical fuss has been about these last 25 years. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide