Customer Reviews

Filth & Fire

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Mary Gauthier's "Filth & Fire" is her 3rd recorded set. She writes country like it's supposed to be, which would be unrecognizable to the Nashville photo-opp crowd. The opener, "Walk Through the Fire," is a determined dirge with a disarmingly beautiful melody, "So I let go of lovers; I let go of diamonds; I've plenty of sins to atone while I walk through the fire alone." On "A Long Way to Fall" Gurf Morlix plays a weissenborn. I confess that I don't know what that is; but I admire Mary bringing in less common instruments to flavor the arrangements. Catie Curtis, who is one of my favorite folkies, co-wrote "Sugar Cane" with Mary. Catie's version is on her "My Shirt Looks Good On You" CD. Both versions are good; but Mary's gives the somber song with its pretty melody a distinctly country flair with Darcie Deaville's fiddle lending a wistful resignation. "Merry Go Round" is a sad midtempo track about abuse & drug addiction, "From the phone booth on the freeway when there's no one left to call; to the porcelain God you pray to in the public restroom stall." Peter Rowan's mandolin makes a cheerful sound on "Good-Bye" as Mary, who was herself adopted, sings about a mother giving up her baby. "Cheaters, liars, outlaws & fallen angels come looking for the grace from which they fell; They hold on to each other in the darkness," Mary sings in the depressingly gorgeous "Camelot Motel." "After You're Gone" is a tear-in-your-beer special slow song. "The Ledge" gets our toe tapping a bit as Mary's vocal is one part howl, one part moan. "Christmas In Paradise" is a great ballad about two down-&-outs celebrating under a bridge. Jonathan Pointer's "For Rose" is a slow sad song about the aftermath of a war or a love affair; sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. "We hold on to each other, but to our faith we cling," Mary laments on "The Sun Fades the Color of Everything." This set is dark in tone. It is a territory which has the voice of experience in these tunes. Let Mary tug at your heart.

Mary Gauthier is a force to be reckoned with. Mary's songwriting skills are the things that writers of any kind dream about. You listen to her music and are drawn away from your world, and into her's. You cannot listen to these songs and not be totally captured by their lyrics. If you love great American songwriter's you will love Mary Gauthier. She will one day be recognized as one of our best. Mary has been referred to as a female Townes Van Zandt and this reference captures her perfectly. If you are a fan of great songwriter's Van Zandt, Guy Clark, or Dylan you are already a fan of Mary Gauthier. I will leave you with this statement: You want to buy this CD!

I first heard Mary on John Kelly's programme on Irish radio here in Manchester. Her captivating voice stopped me in my tracks and made me listen. I was immediately enthralled by her sonorous voice and uncomprising lyrics. Mary sings with authority about the alcoholics, the junkies, the down and outs, etc. who have been bypassed by the American dream. These are her people and she sings of them with affection and love. I cannot reccomend this CD too highly, particularly the song "Christmas in Paradise"

Although I'm not a country music devotee, I've been a big fan of Mary's since she started out playing tiny coffeehouse venues in the Boston area. Her clear, open honesty and astonishing talent shine like bright beacons to anyone within sight or hearing when she starts to play. Without question "Filth and Fire" is her best and most polished album to date. Mary's started to hit her creative stride and her voice now effortlessly spans the range from sweet and wistful to snarling and growling. "Sugar Cane" has become an earworm that I can't get enough of, and conjures the very best of Neil Young in his prime. Likewise, I find myself humming bars from "Walk through the Fire", "Merry-Go-Round" and "Christmas in Paradise" during the course of my day. If you think you "don't like country music", listen to this CD. Mary Gauthier (say "GoShay", y'all!!) will change your mind, or at least force you to make an exception.

Mary is a rare treasure, and I'm betting that "Filth and Fire" is just the first disc of a transcendant phase of musicianship and songwriting from her. She's *that* good.

I've been in radio for 38 years. Yeah I'm getting older. Part of the problem with loving music and having to work with it everyday is that you get jaded. You get cynical. Then along comes Mary Gauthier. Her 3rd album. Her first for me. It is dark. It is brilliant. She has made me remember what I felt like when I first heard Bob Dylan. When I first heard The Band. When I first heard John Prine. When I first heard Leonard Cohen. Thank you Mary Gauthier and thank you God for giving her this amazing talent. I can only give 5 stars. I would have given it 10!

If any emerging artist deserves comparison to Lucinda Williams, it's Louisiana born and detox and prison bred Mary Gauthier, whose "Filth and Fire" (Signature Sounds) is one of the most consistently probing and satisfying albums to come along in months.

Guy Clark tapped Gauthier (pronounced go-SHAY) to tour with him in recent months and the album shows why. She's hit her stride as a songwriter and a singer on this, her third disc. There's nothing sunny to her tuneful tales. She introduces us to the abandoned, the cheaters, the invisible [] who "move through like thunder." The highlights are numerous. Start with unsteady lover seduced in "A Long Way to Fall." Listen to how she sings "I fell into your open arms," hesitating a beat before adding, "and that's a long way to fall."

"Sugar Cane," co-written with Catie Curtis, chronicles the locals left to clean up poison after the company has harvested the cash. "Good-Bye" lovingly recreates the [fatherless] child passed around who says "good-bye could have been my family name." And Ian McLagen's Hammond B-3 drives the insistent examination of choices in "The Ledge."

The songs are all gritty, haunting -- and catchy as hell. Gurf Morlix, Williams' former producer and bandleader, provides his typically eclectic and twanging production using Hammond B3 organ, mandolin and fiddle in just the right places.

Comparisons to Williams, Clark, John Prine, Townes Van Zandt or even early Steve Earle are deserved.

Gauthier has arrived.

"Filth & Fire" is a great album. I don't know whether Gauthier's previous albums are as good as this one, but, if so,
I wonder why she isn't as famous as the other gal coming from Louisiana (that is, Lucinda Williams).

The standout here is "Sugar Cane": a narrative about the environmental pollution caused by (guess what?) a sugar cane factory in the Mississippi Delta. Because of its social commentary, this song is steeped in the best tradition of folk music, but it's also a plain good country song with harmonica and fiddle providing a nice texture. After just one listening, you'll know the chorus by heart ("From Thibodaux to Raceland, there's fire in the fields...").

"Sugar Cane" also epitomizes the double nature of this album: committed, social-conscious lyrics, often verging on bleakness and hopelessness, wrapped up in upbeat layers of sounds supplied by harmonica, fiddle, lap steel, mandolin and slide guitar.

For instance, you'll love the mandolin that introduces the refrain in "Good-bye", even though the words are anything but joyful: "Born a bastard child in New Orleans to a woman I've never seen...". Or, in "Merry-go-round": "From the milky white of heroin as it bubbles and sooths, the dirty sheets you lie on with nothing left to lose". To complete this journey to hell, give also a listening to "Christmas in Paradise" and "Camelot Motel". I spare you the grim details here.

But beware, she's not striking a pose. She sounds honest even when she describes her homeless Christmas under a bridge with her vagabond companion (as in "Christmas in Paradise").

So, don't be intimidated by this album. There are also a couple of love songs; for instance, "After you're gone" is
pure vintage country, a nice duet with Gurf Morlix. Even though all players are top-notch, this guy deserves the
highest praise, because he plays most of the instruments and produces the album.

"Filth and Fire" ends in a calm tone. "The sun fades" is basically just her voice and an acoustic guitar. Her attitude is serene and makes me hope her next album will be a little bit brighter lyrically and the same musically.

A super-mournful, entropy-ridden set of alt.country sadcore, heavily laced with themes of ruefullness and thwarted redemption. With Gauthier's connection to Gurf Morlix (he produced and played on this album) I made the inevitable Lucinda Williams comparison, then found my thoughts drifting to the similarly mopey, spiritually-inclined Canadian folksinger, Ferron, and finally was able to hear Gauthier as her own artistic voice. She's pretty downerific, and the religious bent of this album can also be a little offputting (Gauthier's not so much proselytizing as lamenting her own perpetual fall from grace, also potentially alienating for the casual listener...) However, her songs are well-crafted: fans of the late Townes Van Zandt will probably find a lot to cheer about here. Good stuff, kinda high-concept and forlorn, but gritty, engaging and intelligent as well.

Only four online reviews for this record (five with mine)... I guess Mary doesn't make the hype as other "pretty" girls do in music... but I don't care of any hype (to the contrary, it usually makes me run away), and our world makes me bitter. "Filth & Fire" is the essence of country music: emotion. The great effect Mary makes on every sensitive listener is due to her strong personality, her true human being - she's in our pop music world what Marlon Brando was in movies: just here and real. With only her present voice, which shines in the dark, and a pure production from Gurf Morlix (who also produced Lucinda Williams "Sweet Old World"), Mary reaches an incredible beauty, calm as a broad lake. You will rarely listen to such a splendid intimacy this year.

Mary Gauthier (GO-shay) is a former sucessful Boston resterauntuer hailing from New Orleans. She made a mid-life decision to become a singer/songrwritter, and with little musical training was performing at open mikes within a year. I am hoping that "Filth and Fire" is a breakthrough CD for Mary. She should be placed in the elite of country/noir songwritters like Lucinda Williams and John Hiatt. "Christmas In Paradise" is a hard luck story of two beautiful losers spending the holidays under the stars in Key West. The songs are like Raymond Carver stories set to music. One of the great CD releases of 2002, or any year for that matter.