CD Review

With enough Best of 2005 album lists of late to make even Sufjan Stevens blush, there’s about another 11 months before we get tumbled with another barrage of year end picks. A name to get used to for next December is Cat Power, whose latest work The Greatest (not to be confused with a Greatest Hits release), will certainly have her in line with her contemporaries - Antony, Sufjan, and Feist.

On her seventh album, Chan Marshall, who has been performing under the name of Cat Power since the early 90’s, returns to the Memphis rhythms she grew up on and the city that spawned her second album, What Would The Community Think? A departure from her sparse guitar and piano playing, Marshall enlisted Al Green’s guitarist Mabon Hodges to play guitar on the album, along with Steve Potts of Booker and the MGs fame on drums, joined together with other top Memphis musicians. There is no "Love &Happiness" or "Take Me To The River" here, as the slinky 70’s grooves are replaced with Marshall's take on the Stax sound.

As a break from her live shows that feature chaotic and introspective folk, The Greatest is filled with saloon soul, as Marshall’s smoky voice tells of stories of loss and longing. But this is no Norah Jones cheese, instead "Could We" roars like a Van Morrison number, while the purring cinematic title track, although about a boxer, might be a future favorite wedding song. Although Marshall steers into a Tori Amos ethereal piano side with the atmospheric "Willie," her voice comes off suggestive and warm. As you hold onto the last note of the swinging final track "Love &Communication," Chan Marshall provides an orchestral gallop for Cat Power that will steer The Greatest onto the Best of 2006 lists.