Published on Oct 21, 2003
Lucinda Williams’
Car Wheels on a Gravel Road may not have set the charts on
fire, but it was the album that had critics swooning in 1998. She
beat out Lauryn Hill in Village Voice for “Album of the Year”
honors and netted her a Grammy award. It was an album six years in
development and was considered by many to be one of the best albums
of the ’90s. After scoring a banner year in 1998, the pressure for
a follow-up loomed.
Three years later, Williams released
Essence, arguably her most intense and intimate album. Most
people would shrug at the time it took for
Essence to come out (the album’s actual recording time was
only a few weeks), but when you’re operating on Williams time,
three years is like three months. The album was recorded in a fit
of creative inspiration and is just enough of a departure from
Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. While
Car Wheels came close to being over-produced, Essence revels
in its imperfections. Some songs drone on for too long, some sound
too much like one another.
Three songs stand out on
Essence: “Blue,” the title track and “Get Right With God.”
“Blue” represents the majority of the songs on
Essence; it’s heartbreakingly sad and forces the listener to
absorb all of the pain. It’s the equivalent of seeing a friend cry
and break down in front of you at a restaurant. “Essence” is the
most mainstream song in the bunch and “Get Right With God” is
instantly memorable because it’s the most uptempo song in the bunch
by a landslide.
Essence‘s biggest flaw is its lack of song variety. It’s the
first Lucinda Williams album that forces you to give it third,
fourth and even fifth listens before it sinks in.
Essence was not an “album of the year” type album of
Williams. Instead, it was an album that she felt she could record
with her new creative freedoms gained by
Car Wheels’ success. That all said, it is an album that has
held up extremely well for repeated listens.
Essence is definitely not the first album you should
purchase from Williams. Many of the faults and imperfections on
Essence, she corrected in this year’s
World Without Tears
. Like all of her albums, her voice, strong and weary at the
same time, remains the main reason to pick it up. For many
hard-core fans,
Essence stands as her crowning achievement, mainly because
of its loose style. As for other listeners,
Essence will probably sound like it could have spent a
little more time inthe cooker.