Kasey Chambers
Wayward Angel (Warner Bros.)
by Marc Hirsh

originally published in the Baltimore City Paper, December 22, 2004

On her third album, Kasey Chambers has yet to display a strong personality that can carry her through from start to finish. 2002’s Barricades & Brickwalls provided a doozy, a flinty heartbreaker who shouldn’t be trifled with, but Chambers couldn’t commit to it, falling back repeatedly on a less interesting take on adult contemporary roots-pop.

Wayward Angel resolves that tension by dismayingly tipping the scales towards the latter. Songs like “Hollywood” and the car-commercial peppy “Like A River” suggest that Chambers wants more than anything to be a sensitive singer/songwriter, but her hunting-knife voice is a harder, sharper weapon than those songs require. As a lyricist, Chambers occasionally falls into the trap of writing words without considering what they mean; in “Saturated,” she finishes the phrase “I never wanted anything but…” with something different each of the four times she sings it, coming off less like someone who was addressing her own contradictions than like a writer who simply wasn’t paying attention.

There’s no question that Chambers has talent; most of the songs on Wayward Angel that work, like the fierce “Stronger” and the title track (one of several with echoes of Patty Loveless’s Mountain Soul), have an undercurrent of menace that befits her powerful voice, and she proves herself capable of pulling off a slow number like “For Sale,” which houses a gorgeous melody that unfolds at a languid pace. If Chambers were to follow in the direction that Wayward Angel seems to lead her, she would have to learn to strengthen her weaknesses and downplay her existing strengths. There are more efficient ways of sustaining a career.

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