I wanna hang out with this band.  Check it out.  They look like they are having fun.  I love music when it’s fun.  

No Depression rocks.  Still.  They interviewed our boy Ronnie Fauss, then Shady from the New Zealand radio station, Radioactive-FM,  interviewed him.  Now they have introduced Donna Dean to the masses and about time, I’d say, because it’s clear that they have been practicing for a while….uh, duh…..where has she been?  where have I been?  Thanks for the alert on this, Shady, because I am richer for having heard it this morning.  

If you have ever listened to any guitar playin’ women and dug it, you will have to give Donna a listen and let me know what you think.  I’m liking her upbeat attitude about a subject we can all relate to from the first line, which is “I been walking on eggshells around you lately….”  Yes, yes, I can relate!  The song is What Am I Gonna Do?

Comparisons have been made . . . Mary Chapin-Carpenter, Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams . . .I think I’ll listen to Donna Dean some more and get back to you on this.

Man, those were the days.

Lately she’s been a lot more prolific than she was back then. Her latest release, “West,” on Lost Highway Records, is her third studio release since 2001. And if you count last year’s Live at the Fillmore, she’s been virtually cranking them out since the turn of the millennium, relatively speaking.

Of course quantity is no substitute for quality and scanning through the reviews, it seems the critics have drawn mostly the same conclusion:

“Not her best work”

At least that’s what I think Alfred Soto is saying in this Stylus Magazine review, but then again, after reading it a couple times, I’m not really sure just what the hell he’s saying:

"A shame an NPR market supercilious of the mercenary likes of Sheryl Crow has forced her to record songs that Crow herself would consider models of autumnal acuity. Williams can keep feeling herself up if she likes. Sooner or later she’s going to leave the house."

I’m not absolutely certain, but don’t think he likes it.

Over at Pop Matters, while Roger Holland reaches liberally into his big bag of snark, he still manages something that’s at least coherent:

“Listening to West, I’m forced finally to conclude something that should have been obvious from the start. Yes, Lucinda Williams has a magnificent voice. And yes, she writes marvelous songs. And yes, at least three (and probably more) of her records would make my personal top ten of all time. But much of the captivating emotional power she generates comes from the relationship between her voice and its musical setting. It’s like the circle of life, or a feedback loop, or something. Lucinda feeds off the musicians around her, they in turn feed off her, and everyone goes home sated and contented. With West, that circle has been broken.”

The main thrust of his article is that working with a new producer and (mostly) new musicians has sucked a lot of the vitality Lucinda and her touring band have managed to achieve. That and some of the songs aren’t quite up to her usual standard:

“I think I hear TIME calling, they want their “America’s best songwriter” headlines back.”

Did I mention that he’s kind of snarky?

Here’s his take on the albums worst track, Wrap My Head Around That:

“Having previously given Lucinda the benefit of the doubt for her prior offences in rap, I cannot forgive “Wrap My Head Around That”—nine (count them!) minutes of the clumsiest rapping ever over a homogenized, decaffeinated Talking Heads ‘80s blend.”

Dude, I can relate.

Moving on to Musicbox, John Metzger combines aspects of both of the above, Soto’s comparisons to Chrissie Hynde and Holland’s overall conclusions. He thinks her songwriting has grown lax:

“Williams’ biggest problem of late seems to stem from the fact that she is relying with greater frequency upon her music to do the heavy lifting. Where her words once were chosen so carefully, she now seems content simply to capture moods and feelings in generic terms. The more verbose that her songs become, the more her lyrics begin to feel labored.”

I would counter that only a couple tracks on West feel labored. Yet he manages to give the record 4 stars.

Another 4 star review that still can’t quite hide it’s disappointment can be found at Rolling Stone. Here Robert Christgau lays some of the blame on Lu’s recent relatively voluminous output:

“…That Lucinda had released four albums of her own songs on four labels in eighteen years — all of which, back to 1980′s girlish, strummed-acoustic Happy Woman Blues, favored concrete narrative and verse-chorus structures. This Lucinda has released three studio albums plus a redundant live double in six years, all of which tend toward metaphysical abstraction and open-ended incantation…”

Sylvie Simmons at The Guardian gives it a full five stars while only writing one paragraph:

“… It’s inspired by a period that took in her mother’s death and the end of a love affair. The predominant theme is pain, and no one does pain as eloquently as Williams – or as multifariously. West is all musical mood swings: from stoic, heartbreak country to fierce revenge rock, retro pop to folk, poetry to rap, mellow California to dark LA rock. What makes Williams such an important country artist, besides the excellent songwriting and that sultry, scarred southern voice, is her skill at stretching the genre’s boundaries while mining its essence. Which, often as not, is pain.”

OK, no one does pain like Lucinda. Real pain, not that faux emo pain that’s so popular with the goth kids these days. Her true genius is expressing that kind of soul wringing pain that life has a way of dealing out and finding just the right words and the perfect musical accompaniment to back it up.

And that’s what I find missing here- the perfection part. There’s pain, Mama You Sweet is quite literally a description of physical pain. Learning to Live is all about overcoming emotional pain, but listening to it here, I just can’t shake that feeling of déjà vu.

My favorite track, What If, also happens to be one the bulk of the reviews cite as a major misstep. Sure the lyrics are either kind of nonsensical or she’s dealing with metaphors on a level that flies way over my head, but it just sounds so good. And, ironically, it’s all about hope not pain.

To be fair, it goes without saying that with her previous work, Lucinda has set the bar pretty damn high. And when you’ve put out as consistent a run of exceptional records as she has, “West” is hardly a reason to start writing her musical epitaph. In fact, it’s not really that bad record at all. She treads some ground she’s tread more deftly before and the production does seem a bit sterile and, of course, there’s that bad “wrap” song.

But on the whole, a sub par Lucinda Williams record is still considerably better than 95% of what comes out of Nashville these days.

As I’ve heard it, during the recording of her breakthrough record "Car Wheels On A Gravel Road," she terminated the relationship with long time guitarist – producer Gurf Morlix.  Steve Earle stepped in to finish the production and the results were her best record to date, one with Steve’s fingerprints all over it.  It launched her into the big time, selling lots of records, winning a Grammy and garnering critical praise as one of the best living American songwriters.

It also marked a turning point in her career.

With her next release, "Essence," there was less focus on death and the more up-tempo songs got a little harder-edged and gritty, while the bulk of the record still retained keen observations on loneliness and alienation, sung in a somewhat more sensual manner.

After "Essence," something happened that was completely unexpected – she released her next record in just 2 years.

"World Without Tears" was a mixed bag of visceral rockers and quiet ballads.  She’s been touring a lot more in recent years, backed up by a new band featuring guitarist Doug Pettibone, bassist Taras Prodaniuk, and drummer Jim Christie at its core.

Now, just another 2 years later, she’s released a live double album, "Lucinda Williams Live At The Fillmore" and it features her touring band of the last few years with the mojo fully working.

Comprised mostly of songs from "World" and "Essence," it includes something from every full length record she’s put out with the exception of her debut "Ramblin.’"

Starting off with a couple of recent ballads, "Ventura" and "Reason To Cry," it doesn’t take long before things start to pick up.  By the fourth track, "Out Of Touch," the band is in full jam mode.  Throughout the disc, her voice alternates between a seductive drawl and an angry growl.

On the first disc, she captures the emotion behind tracks like "Blue" and "I Lost It," wrenching every bit of heartbreak and loneliness out of them and wearing it all on her sleeve.  The second disc, for the most part, rocks out until the final three songs.

"I Lost It" appears on her second release, 1980′s  "Happy Woman Blues" as a folksy little fiddle driven two step and was reworked as a Cajun flavored electric blues-rocker for "Car Wheels."  On "Live," she plays the "Car Wheels" version.

The band is impressively tight and expressive. They skirt the line between stomping country, slow burn blues, and outright rock and provide a perfect backdrop for Lu to showcase her songs.

She covers a lot of territory – from her early obsession with death and religion on "Pineola," her lovelorn ballads like "Blue" and "Those Three Days," to her fascination with music and musicians on the arena rock – like "Real Live Bleeding Fingers."  She even tosses in her attempt at politics, "Every Thing Is Wrong."

But with Lucinda, it always comes back to sad reflections on the state of the heart and the human experience.  "Bus To Baton Rouge" sounded kind of innocuous on "Essence"; here, it’s rendered very soulfully giving it new levels of substance and displaying her powers of observation nicely.

If you’ve never seen Lucinda play live, this is a pretty good example of her shows.  More than any other artist, she personifies what’s great about alt country as a genre.  Based primarily in folksy country, she incorporates American roots music of all types into her sound flawlessly and ends up with a sound that’s distinct and original and yet somehow familiar at the same time.

It’s also nice to hear her cut loose with these songs, unlike the more tightly controlled versions you’ll find on most of her records, as good as they are.

Still, I can’t help wondering how long it will be before we get more new songs.