June 13, 2010

Publication title: blog.masslive.com, vol. -, Iss. -, pg. –
Place: Unknown
Writer: Kevin O’Hare

Sarah McLachlan’s sad songs soothe the soul

Before hitting the road to headline a revived Lilith Fair 2010, the all woman’s music extravaganza that she founded, Sarah McLachlan is taking care of business, namely releasing her own first studio album of new material in seven years.

“Laws of Illusion” is the singer/songwriter’s break-up album, directly and indirectly filled with a sense of melancholy following her split with husband Ashwin Sood, the drummer whom she had married in 1997.

Her voice is still filled with breathless beauty, her music still carries a mystical ambience but there’s no denying the pain filtering through much of the set. Take for example a few sample lines from the emotional piano ballad “Forgiveness.”

“This house of cards it had to fall/You ask for forgiveness, you’re asking too much/I have sheltered my heart in a place you can’t touch/I don’t believe when you tell me your love is real/ ‘Cause you don’t know much about heaven boy if you have to hurt to feel.”

It’s just one of several songs on the disc that sound despairingly blue, nevertheless traced with an inner beauty in the fashion that one of McLachlan’s idols, fellow Canadian Joni Mitchell penned on her own classic “Blue” album.

Throughout the introspective “Laws of Illusion,” McLachlan seems to confront her own uncertainty as she sings in “U Want Me 2:”

“So what are we saying/Our Eden’s a failure/A made-up story to fit the picture-perfect world/The one with “I do” and I love you/And we are made for each other/Is forever over now?”

Recorded in Montreal and Vancouver with McLachlan’s longtime musical collaborator/producer Pierre Marchand, it features plenty of the pair’s trademark atmospheric musical splashes, from the slightly eerie opening sequence in “Awakenings,” which also features an air-tight rhythm section, to the delicate starkness matched with layers of harmonies in “Bring on the Wonder.”

The first single, “Loving You is Easy,” is decidedly pop-flavored thanks to its staccato chord structure and straight-ahead approach. And while McLachlan’s image is a balladeer with candles all around her, there are times where the musical intensity jumps several notches as in the swirling, aching beauty “Love Come” with its twisted guitar breaks and intriguing rhythms, or “Rivers of Love,” which also benefits from some fine guitar work.

Along with a sense of melancholy and resignation, there’s also a sense of honesty that is at the soul of “Laws of Illusion.” Indeed there are no illusions here, which may be the most important law of all. McLachlan’s songs may be painted in sorrow, but like much of the songwriter’s finest work, the melodies linger long and the simmering passion touches the soul.