Search - Freakwater :: Thinking of You

The Mighty Freakwater Does It Again

Lars Travolta | Los Angeles, CA | 12/03/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Right Brothers

Great, epic opener, a classic Irwin composition, self-deprecating and heartfelt. Reminiscent of the last album's opener, Good for Nothing. It starts with a quick growl from an amp, like a warning that Freakwater's gonna go electric, but it turns out to be a bit of an in-joke. This is no Blonde on Blonde; electric guitar is used in small, tasteful doses. Catherine comes right out of the gate with regret: "I thought/ that I could/ maaaake it." When La Beveridge Bean's voice appears on the second verse it's so exciting, like she's stepping out from backstage. This song is maybe a commentary on the band's career, a wish that someone would have really helped and supported them. The cry of "to find someone who knows how I feel" is quite touching. Reminds me of Kurt Cobain's "am I the only one?"



Cricket vs. Ant

A wonderfully old-fashioned song. The language she comes up with. "Sport and play"! Sounds autobiographical for Catherine who from what I understand, when she's not too busy being a musical genius, does a bit of housepainting and takes a lot of naps, while those around her (including Janet) have had to get grown-up jobs. A cricket amongst ants. A sense of doom on the horizon, in the chorus, gives the song its lovely pathos.



Buckets of Oil

Comforting the way it takes the long view of the war. She makes it sound sort of biblical. A great protest song for our times; they should play it at peace rallies. The shocking appearance of electric guitar in a Freakwater song finally happens, appropriately. Sounds like America crashing and burning. I love how she takes apart "America the Beautiful".



So Strange

Great change of pace, in the vein of "Hellbound". I could see Dolly Parton or the Dixie Chicks doing this one, except it's a bit more complex and ironic than you'd expect from them. Even FW's party songs have mystery.



Loserville

I guess it's a nickname for Louisville. Probably a great song by most standards, but in the context of a FW album this one doesn't quite do it for me. That word "Loserville" ... I don't know, it sounds like a novelty song. Anybody remember Jimmy Buffet? A lot of slow waltzes on the first half of the record. Maybe they should've let the electric guitar rip on the bridge.



Cathy Ann

A little girl murdered by her father? Her ghost still playing in the sand. The moon, the flame, the water. Catherine is so great at using this kind of imagery to create songs that have both intimacy and great epic sweep. The watery death theme makes it kind of a companion piece to Jewel. An exquisite song, but at this point the pace of the album is coasting a bit.



Double Clutch

I think this is the standout song on the album. So delicate and powerful and mysterious. It's like a novel collapsed into twenty lines or so. It seems like Janet's only composition on this record. I think it might be about a musician trying to stay strong in the face of the opportunity to sell out, "the windfall that could blow your bones away." Maybe it's about herself, or her ex? Catherine's songwriting is consistently masterful, but on End Time it was Janet's contributions that took FW into uncharted territory, beyond classification. Maybe working at the law firm prevents her from taking those long dark journeys into the soul... Please, more like this! "When you're lost you will never stray" is a fantastic line. What's that "woh woh" sound in the background during the last few "never stray"s? I like it.



Sap

Delicious drawn-out harmonies. Sap is the perfect title. Like a good long cry in the aftermath of the emotions shaken up in Double Clutch. It could've easily had pedal steel on it, but it's so much more intense with unadorned acoustic guitar. I love how Catherine sort of sends up country & western's love of similes - "I fell like a thing that falls, I crashed like a thing that crashes." Ending with the poignant "and it went on and on and on and on like a thing that just won't end."



Jack the Knife

A bit of a change of pace, but still dead serious. Another real old-fashioned sounding one, with bluegrass flava and a whistling wind sound in the background. Catherine mines a similar vein to Brett and Rennie Sparks of The Handsome Family, writing songs that could fit comfortably into Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music. I love that the regret she expresses is also for the evil in herself.



Jewel

A real tearjerker; pain turns to beauty. The plaintive third person narrative seems like a continuation of Raised Skin, from End Time. A suicide, a death by hanging in the kitchen that's also a drowning out at sea, and a suicide note that becomes a strand of pearls, and tears that become diamonds. When they sing "not erase" I always think it's "Bonnie Raitt".



Upside Down

Another standout track, another Irwinesque statement of anti-ambition, although it's probably wrong to use the word statement for something that takes such a spiralling, skidding, oblique path. "I been sleeping like a bat underneath my bed." I love the yelping, throaty vocals on this one. "Is the bottle half full or half-empty? Hand it over if you really wanna know."



Hi Ho Silver

What a great song to bow out with. More of Catherine's charming irony and resignation. She sounds like she's singing a little below her register, which gives her voice a special vulnerability. "Hi-Ho Silver high on pills" pretty much sums up the state of the nation in 2005. Catherine lives in a red state and gets away with singing "Tell me why your God is so divine". "And the blood tells me it's all in vain" is the final answer to "I thought that I could make it". Love the anthemic ending; it reminds me of the end of Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush. There's a little coda where Catherine and Janet's voices fade out, drowning in reverb, and sound like they've turned into ghosts.



It's hard to sum up the multifaceted brilliance of this album. Only one new song from Janet, but Catherine's writing has never been better. "Thinking of You" is wise and funny and magical, a sheer pleasure, a fantastic addition to Freakwater's already stellar catalogue."