On her 20th studio album, Marianne Faithfull is a warrior, and Give My Love To London is her victory march.
With an army that includes Nick Cave, Brian Eno, Steve Earle, and more, there is no stopping a woman who has spent 50 years of her life in the entertainment industry and lived to tell about it. Give My Love To London is a cathartic, reflective piece exploring the trenches of an industry that has given her fame, fortune, poverty, illness, and addiction.
The title can be misleading, at risk of sounding like a wacky jazz record, but the title track, co-written by Steve Earle, sings "The river's running bloody, the towers tumbling down", sounding more like a tip of the hat to the underworld than campy off-broadway number. Songs like "Late Victorian Holocaust" (one of the few numbers written by Nick Cave) and the elegantly raucous Ed Harcourt-penned "True Lies" compliment both ranges of her scotch and soda voice, while the overtly pretty "Falling Back" (co-penned with the brilliant Anna Calvi) seem a little forced and incomplete.
The unifying element is undoubtedly her voice: worldly, weary, angry, and sultry. Marianne's a tough broad. A fighter, who hasn't lost a battle yet.
★★★★
