Cat Power: Sun

"On 'Sun,' her demons come out in the form of a constant attempt to solve some outstanding problem; the album feels less like a series of songs than like eleven different ways to reflect the same anxious human. 'Cherokee,' the opener, is one of the least tense songs on the record, yet its lyrics feature its darkest notes. 'If I die before my time, bury me upside down,' Marshall sings, in a silvery chorus of herself, as the beats pile up. From a distance, it sounds vaguely celebratory, almost blithe. In the verses, Marshall plays with that contrast, alternating the phrase 'I never knew pain like this' with 'I never knew love like this'; as she approaches the chorus, she does it again, singing, 'bury me, marry me to the sky.' Although the album doesn't deviate from the initial idea of an original wound and ways to heal it, the mood is never desperate or melodramatic. 'Sun' sounds like a document of something that's happened, rather than the report of someone's aching desire to address something undone" (Sasha Frere-Jones, "Light Show," New Yorker, 9/10/12).

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