Covers

Album review

By now, Chan Marshall (aka Cat Power) is an old hand at choosing songs to interpret. On this, her third album of catholic covers, she makes that clear right out of the gate. Her interpretation of Frank Ocean's "Bad Religion"—a spare heartbreaker and one of the most painfully intimate songs of the past decade—is a marvel in that it takes an already perfect song and makes it even more haunting by tapping into a different dimension. There's a lived-in depth, a beautiful reminder of how Marshall has grown into her voice, which used to be a tentative instrument and now is arrestingly yet comfortably assured. Adding more musical layers, including multiple vocal tracks, she underscores how the song is not just about the swelling ache of unrequited love but also the acceptance of what that means about you. Marshall makes Lana Del Rey's sleepy-eyed ballad "White Mustang" into more of a sexy slow roll that quickens its pace at the chorus—becoming a noir prowl, like from some spy thriller. "You're revvin' and revvin' and revvin' it up/ And the sound, it was frightening," Marshall sings like she means it, all the gauze of the original torn aside. Her own song "Hate," a bleak blues lament from 2006's The Greatest, evolves as "Unhate": bigger, bolder and with ghostly vocal effects. The pounding, relentless nightmare of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' "I Had a Dream, Joe" is transformed into a Lynchian fever dream. The effect sounds, truly, like an early Cat Power song—nervous, threatening, skittish, ready to bolt at any moment. Marshall lets slide the cynicism of the Replacements' bittersweet beauty "Here Comes a Regular," leaving the tender ache of hopelessness on full display. The Pogues' trad-folk chanty "A Pair of Brown Eyes" is stripped back to a holy-sounding hymn, organ humming and Marshall's voice a mesmerizing round-robin of harmony. "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" becomes mischievous and winking, slowed down to a lazy summer drawl with back-alley bass. Bob Seger's "Against the Wind," here almost witchy in its femininity, is completely unrecognizable. Marshall puts a swoony, smoky cabaret sheen on the jazz standard "I'll Be Seeing You." And a faithful cover of "These Days"—originally written by a 16-year-old Jackson Browne and made famous by Nico—is exactly what you want to hear from Marshall: husky and shadowy, excruciatingly beautiful, endlessly satisfying. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz