Cat Power
You Are Free

THE REVIEW

Let's be clear: Chan Marshall may not be an irresistibly beautiful top model like Carla Bruni, but she has charm, she's pretty enough but most importantly, she knows how to make good music... and that's what matters to us.

The 31-year-old from Atlanta has a voice tinged with sorrow, distinctive yet enchanting, capable of making her harmonious melodies (sometimes dragging) resonate in the back of the human mind, transporting it on an imaginary journey, above a cloud, making you feel free. After all, that's the function of the album, right?
It's a record whose "not easy" listening makes it undeniably delightful by presenting its rare consistency: thus we are offered fourteen ballads of unusual beauty in its genre, a set of precious gems each distinct from the other by exemplary simplicity, always remaining on the same sound line.

Most of you are "free" thanks to the combinations of voice-guitar, voice-piano, and thanks to that beautiful feeling conveyed by the voice-piano-guitar complex... In Werewolf, the violins seem to cry, painting an almost surreal atmosphere, just the way I like it.
In other songs, there are "illustrious guests" such as Dave Grohl and Eddie Vedder... but Cat Power remains front and center.

Maybe because of opinions like "already heard, doesn't say anything new, too banal, etc.," few will be able to discover the splendor contained within these seemingly "lazy" and "light" songs. But all in all, who cares? At the end of the album, if listened to "all in one breath," the emotion comes out nonchalantly and envelops you with its warm arms...

And as Condor would say, how could you not buy an album with a cover like that???