Anarchist Gospel

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Sunny War—Sydney Lyndella Ward—proudly claims her place as a musical and societal outsider, going back to her teenage years busking acoustic punk on the Venice, California, boardwalk. Drawing on folk and blues as well, she compares her finger-picking to guitar pioneer Elizabeth Cotten but also finds inspiration in the songs of Roky Erickson and Daniel Johnston. On her latest album, she's unafraid to let listeners into her outsider world, chronicling both her frightening drug addiction and recovery as well as a more recent period of extreme change: a cross-country move, her father's death, a broken relationship. On "I Got No Fight"—folk blues with searing guitar—she sings about contemplating suicide ("I hear the devil on my shoulder speak/ He whispers to me when I'm feeling weak") but still managing to find a way through via music. Galloping at a racer's pace, "Test Dummy" explores how public services sometimes treat broken people as anything but human. War's voice is husky, warm, and more than a little evocative of Tracy Chapman. It's a stunning partner for her guest collaborators on the record, including David Rawlings ("Higher," the eerie country blues of "Shelter and Storm"), My Morning Jacket's Jim James ("Earth," which sounds like a trippy 5th Dimension track) and singer-songwriters Allison Russell and Chris Pierce. The latter two offer plaintive harmonies on the humid, harmonica-laced "Love's Death Bed" as well as a stripped-down cover of Dionne Farris's jazzy "Hopeless" from the Love Jones soundtrack. Pierce and Rawlings also join in on the soulful "Swear To Gawd," everyone trading verses and acting as harmonic shadows to each other's lines—including the killer "Don't be slamming doors like you pay bills in my house." "His Love" is a sun-kissed country amble, moody "New Day" is the most Cotten-like, and "No Reason" highlights the completely unexpected line between 1960s Hullabaloo mod and spirituals. Perhaps most unexpected is War's sly and smoky cover of Ween's "Baby Bitch," which she calls "such a great breakup song! You're out there somewhere and run into your ex with their new partner. But you know who they [your ex] really are. You know they're being a bitch. There aren't many songs that get to that kind of experience without turning it into a joke." Also not a joke is the children's choir that joins in on the chorus, sweetly singing, "Please slip back into yourself/ Baby, baby, baby bitch/ Go conquer someone else." © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz