Vic Chesnutt
Ghetto Bells

Crystals of Shadows

It's been quite a while since I last listened to Vic Chesnutt. I'd lost track of him after "About To Choke," a record of stunning beauty that I once loved for its bitter atmospheres, capable of effectively communicating the full meaning of suffering with truly unusual sincerity. Chesnutt, after all, knows pain very well, as he's been living in a wheelchair since 1983 when he was left partially paralyzed due to a terrible car accident. But this situation did not make him lose his way, his life, and his love for music. His art, like a pendulum, slowly swings between melancholy and hope. Shadows with veins of light, indeed, seem to be the peculiar feature of his art, which has many deep, noble, and important roots. Raised listening to Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, he managed to absorb their poetry, enriching it with a grace and energy that are his own. Today, despite many difficulties, he has become one of the most interesting American songwriters of recent years.

"Ghetto Bells" (New West Records - 2005) seems to confirm this. With this album, Vic Chesnutt has added a significant chapter to his story as a musician, because it is a mature and profound work, spontaneous and delicate, capable of arousing many emotions from restlessness to tranquility, from sweetness to melancholy. Intense and gentle, soft and edgy, it lives on apparent contrasts, managing to capture the listener's attention thanks to a drawling voice full of memories and regrets, revealing the richness of his humanity in transparency.

"Ghetto Bells" unfolds, alternating between soft, fluid, and immense ballads, night rains, lightness gems, hypnotic breaths, restless sways, hybrid chiaroscuros of nervous and fragile souls. And Vic succeeds in this by consolidating, on one hand, his cited musical references, while adding new ones on the other. There are affinities with Tom Waits, not for the very different voice, but for certain rough sounds and some dissonances scattered wisely throughout the album's narrative. I also sensed similarities with songwriters like Joe Henry and Jim White, especially in the ability to continuously ooze emotions from each note. A part of the credit for the beauty of this album certainly goes to the musicians accompanying Vic. Above all, Bill Frisell, who once again proves to be an incredible, eclectic, and boundless artist. The sound of his guitar, translated into a thousand facets now linear, now irregular, is a distinctive and essential element of the album. Equally important is the contribution of Tina Chesnutt on bass, whom Vic beautifully describes as a velvet hammer. But special mention goes to singer Liz Durrett, who teams up with Chesnutt on one of the album's most beautiful moments: "What Do You Mean?". Constructed in the form of a dialogue between two very different voices, it creates in contrast a coat of touching sweetness with a bitter aftertaste, moving like a slow wave.

Perhaps it's too soon to call it a masterpiece, but even if it isn't, this evocative and penetrating album is indeed very close, because it appears as rare and beautiful as a crystal traversed by darkness.