It’s late and I’m tired, but this pilot light of creative writing ain’t gonna glow through wishful thinking alone.
Disc 1411 is…. Gaslighter
Artist: The Chicks
Year of Release: 2020
What’s up with the Cover? No, this is not the Chicks in some earlier phase of their lives, it is Josie Bogle, Emma Martin and Caoimhe O’Shea, collectively known as the Corrigan-White School of Irish Dance pageant winners.
The cover also notes the album is by the “Dixie Chicks” but that’s just because it got released right before they changed their band name. They are now called “The Chicks” and so that, quite naturally, is what I’ll be calling them too.
How I Came To Know It: I am a long-time fan of the Chicks dating back to their first album, so this was just me buying their latest record.
How It Stacks Up: I have five Chicks albums total. Of those, “Gaslighter” lands right in the middle at #3 and is in close contention for #2.
Ratings: 3 stars
When Chicks’ singer Natalie Maines’ ex discovered she had reunited with her old band and that their first album in 14 years was going to be a concept album, he may have hoped it would be the fanciful story of a haunted amusement park. Instead, “Gaslighter” is an unapologetic exploration of every facet of the topic, “my ex-husband is a douchebag.” Cross a gifted songwriter at your peril, gentlemen.
You’d think this theme would get old, but it never does. After almost a decade and a half apart the Chicks show no rust. “Gaslighter” is a worthy entry into their already impressive musical career. Gone is most of their early country sound, as this album is the natural continuance of the journey into pop music they were on with their 2006 parting album, “Taking the Long Way.” While that album was still finding its way, “Gaslighter” has its feet well under it, striding purposefully through layers of sound with the “don’t give a fuck” confidence that the Chicks have always worn so well.
I will always have a soft spot for Emily Robison and Martie Maguire’s brilliant musicianship, and while they are often muted in this new sound, they get their moments to shine. The album does a fine job of bringing in other sounds as well, including the transmutative brilliance on electric guitar of St. Vincent on “Texas Man”. It was hard to be too disappointed when there is so much good going on.
Maines’ vocals have always been powerful, and this record is some of the finest work of her career. It helps that she has a whole lot to say about her ex, with very little of it being complimentary. Through the course of the record you get a very clear picture of just what she thinks of him from the opening title track, where she sings “you know exactly what you did on my boat” all the way through to the direct evidence noted in the title of Track 8, “Tights on My Boat” which Maines begins with:
“I hope you die peacefully in your sleep
Just kidding
I hope it hurts like you hurt me.”
And where we learn definitively that no, the titular tights were not hers.
For all the anger and betrayal you would expect on a divorce record, there is also a lot of self-examination and honest soul searching expressed as well. “Texas Man” is a celebratory and self-aware expression of rediscovered sexual longing (along with the natural trepidation that comes with getting back onto the dating scene). “Young Man” is the awkward effort to say the right thing to the kids when mom and dad are done with each other.
“My Best Friend’s Wedding” is the gravitational center of the record, as Maines recalls meeting her husband at a friend’s wedding. That wedding, too, ended in divorce, but the friend found love the second time around, and so hope remains for us all. It is touching stuff, both strong and vulnerable, and a reminder that all this pain will pass, with maybe that dreamed-of Texas Man noted earlier just around the corner.
“Gaslighter” often simmers with anger and disappointment, but at its core it isn’t a dirge, it’s a rebirth. It ends on the happiest note an album like this can – an appeal to decency and a request for the douchebag to just please sign the Goddamn divorce papers.
Best tracks: Gaslighter, Texas Man, Everybody Loves You, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Tights on My Boat, Set Me Free
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