Albums by this artist

Failer (2003)

Kathleen Edwards

Failer

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» JONATHAN PIERCY | CONTRIBUTOR

Kathleen Edwards Failer Rounder, 2003 RiYL: Lucinda Williams, Whiskeytown/Ryan Adams/Caitlin Cary, Kasey Chambers

When reviewing an album by an up-and-coming female alt-country singer-songwriter, one is required by law to mention Lucinda Williams in the first paragraph. Tempting though it may be to live outside the law, sometimes the comparison is appropriate -- and if the worst thing you can say about an album is that it can be compared to Lucinda’s work, you have a fine album indeed. Such is the case with Failer, the major label debut by Kathleen Edwards. Her country-rock sensibility, evocative lyrics, and slightly off-kilter delivery can’t help but bring to mind that other songstress, but that’s because they work so damn well.

This is not, in any sense, a happy album. Unlike the Dixie Chicks, who can make a song about shooting one’s man into a joyous sing-along, Edwards makes getting stoned and having sex in one’s car into something positively heartbreaking (“Mercury”). As the title implies, resignation is the driving force behind the lyrics—resignation to her inevitable lack of mainstream success (“One More Song the Radio Won’t Like”), resignation to to less-than-fulfilling relationships (“I don’t want to be your friend/now take off your clothes and get in my bed”), resignation to the general crushing pain of existence (“Pop some pills to feel the same/Could you make it alright?”).

Even though the antagonist of “One More Song…” tells her, “No one likes a girl who won’t sober up,” the lyrics are as chilling and as enticing as they are depressing. Death (“Six o’Clock News”), forbidden affairs (“Westby”), and heartbreak (take your pick) are rendered without hesitation, and each listen reveals another line that resonates with truth and pain. This is an album that you listen to while curled up around a tumbler of whiskey, nodding your head all the while. In other words, it is what country music ought to be.

Her band is the perfect backdrop for her tales of woe, equally comfortable with twang and feedback. A few tracks suffer from the overproduction often plagues debut albums -- “12 Bellevue” does not really benefit from the addition of horns -- but in general, the band never forgets that the song is the star of the show.

It’s unfortunate that an artist who straddles the country-rock fence so perfectly is practically guaranteed a lack of radio play in either genre. These may be songs that the radio won’t like, but that is the radio’s loss.

JONATHAN PIERCY | Jonathan Piercy is a writer, music lover, and amateur magician in Greensboro, NC. In his spare time, he is a resident physician in internal medicine.