As tender as it is uncompromising, Wanderer is exactly the album Marshall needed to make at this point in her career and life. It's some of her most essential music, in both senses of the word.
Aa marvelously minimalist, generously arranged and smartly written glance into one woman’s mind.
With an emotional honesty that even sinks into her covers, Cat Power delivers a heavy if occasionally tonally stagnant album.
Marshall’s breath punctuates sparse ballads, driven by rolling piano, expansive guitar and a lyrical map of riddles and wisdoms.
It feels ... as if Marshall is drawing on music that comes naturally to her and shaping it to her own ends.
Beautifully produced by the songwriter herself, ‘Wanderer’ is an ode to Americana’s dusty dead roads, its rusted down vehicles and the flickering lights of long-forgotten barrooms.
Understated, beautifully crafted and always emotionally involving, Wanderer shows an artist who has found strength in her convictions, and a new pace of life.
Cat Power, lays full claim to the title of her tenth album, Wanderer with the authority of a blueswoman who’s seen some shit, alternately conjuring trances and slapping you out of them, projecting clear-eyed, uncompromising strength on one of the most fragile-sounding sets she’s ever made.
Stylistically, Wanderer doesn’t break much new ground for Marshall. What is powerful about this album is her ability to imbue each word with every ounce of what she has lived – as a woman, a mother, an artist.
Squint your ears, and the album comes full circle back through The Greatest and You Are Free to some of Marshall’s earliest work, drawing on folk, blues and rule-shrugging DIY methods.
Maybe it’s a little lighter, a little more carefree, a little sparer than her last few – or maybe it’s just that she doesn’t sound so hurt – but this feels like a step into something fresh. If not a creative rebirth, then a creative renewal.
Her tenth studio album might be written about Cat Power’s own journey, but it also doubles as an essential compass for finding your way through the dark.
Wanderer, whether as a one-off tribute to the wandering musical spirit of the outsiders and weirdos that have come into her life, or as a new beginning for herself, is a triumph of raw emotion, old direction, and new meaning.
This album is a quiet triumph, the understated work of an artist honouring herself and her creativity.
Throughout, Marshall feels in total command, stripped back but self-assured, singing about everything from Trumpian dysfunction (In Your Face) and family relationships (Horizon) to corporate greed (Robbin Hood).
Wanderer is neither as harrowing as Moon Pix nor as kaleidoscopic as Sun, but it shows a mature artist who rides the waves of tumultuous experience — no less excellent for containing her multitudes.
On her first album in six years, Chan Marshall roams the many moods of her songwriting with a careful, soft-spoken power.
'Wanderer' is a collection of intimately gorgeous, well-written, and uniquely performed indie folk songs that cement her status as one of our generation's great singer-songwriters.
While her vulnerability here lends itself to melancholy, it’s also triumphant and resolute.
After being out of the spotlight for years, Marshall hasn't lost her style. Producing Wanderer entirely on her own, you get the sense that she has ventured into new territory.
Marshall’s tenth studio album, in an erratic if fascinating 25-year career, is an intimate, multifaceted reflection of her always complex, frequently indistinct character.
Cat Power has a veritable walk-in closet of skeletons to draw on. But along with heavy-hitting content and fine penmanship, it’s the deft touch with which Chan Marshall curates the songs that really elevates Wanderer.
Cat Power's ability to centralize her self-worth and artistic integrity imbues Wanderer with a sanguine and empowering assurance.
Marshall has created an album with a nuance and polish she didn’t have in her early days of just her and her guitar. Even if the territory is somewhat familiar, she’s never made an album quite like this before.
Marshall sounds as though she has finally arrived at a comfortable place in Wanderer after decades of exhausting work, and the effort can be heard with the songs echoing her past accomplishments.
‘Wanderer’ may occasionally feel a little too thin, melodically, but it continues to reaffirm that no one quite writes songs of experience like Chan Marshall.
Wanderer is an album of peculiar little songs that you won't hear in anyone else's catalogue. It is ungainly, odd, and at times almost amateurish.
Marshall charts her own path in Wanderer, fully in command of her artistic vision as she courses through an unimpeded trail. This freedom comes at a cost, though, resulting in some undeveloped material that could've used an extra revision or two.
There’s nothing inherently wrong about Wanderer being mannered—but, unfortunately, the album’s subtlety is also often its undoing.
The stripped back blues and folk sound from Chan’s earlier work makes a comeback on this album, and it’s done well. This project feels like what should have followed her 2003 album with its similarities in sound. Chan sings with bluesy inflections over spacious sounding folk instrumentals. There really isn’t a whole lot that stands out in the songwriting here, but it simply works into the style of music that she’s trying to present. It’s good soulful music with ... read more
I'm rather smitten with this one; Cat's voice is like a musical hot water bottle in these increasingly long nights.
Best tracks: You Get, Woman, Black
Wanderer-9/10
In your face-7.5/10
You get-7.5/10
Woman-10/10⭐️
Horizon-8.5/10
Stay-7.3/10
Black-7.5/10
Robbin hood-7.2/10
Nothing really matter-7.7/10
Me voy-7/10
Wanderer/exit-7/10
The stripped back blues and folk sound from Chan’s earlier work makes a comeback on this album, and it’s done well. This project feels like what should have followed her 2003 album with its similarities in sound. Chan sings with bluesy inflections over spacious sounding folk instrumentals. There really isn’t a whole lot that stands out in the songwriting here, but it simply works into the style of music that she’s trying to present. It’s good soulful music with ... read more
Wanderer-9/10
In your face-7.5/10
You get-7.5/10
Woman-10/10⭐️
Horizon-8.5/10
Stay-7.3/10
Black-7.5/10
Robbin hood-7.2/10
Nothing really matter-7.7/10
Me voy-7/10
Wanderer/exit-7/10
1 | Wanderer 1:14 | 80 |
2 | In Your Face 4:11 | 80 |
3 | You Get 3:43 | 77 |
4 | Woman 4:50 feat. Lana Del Rey | 90 |
5 | Horizon 4:24 | 74 |
6 | Stay 3:58 | 76 |
7 | Black 3:56 | 68 |
8 | Robbin Hood 2:10 | 68 |
9 | Nothing Really Matters 3:12 | 69 |
10 | Me Voy 4:00 | 82 |
11 | Wanderer / Exit 2:19 | 72 |
#6 | / | Gaffa (Denmark) |
#20 | / | Far Out Magazine |
#23 | / | Fopp |
#25 | / | MOJO |
#28 | / | Double J |
#29 | / | MondoSonoro |
#31 | / | Uproxx |
#34 | / | The Independent |
#39 | / | Q Magazine |
#41 | / | Uncut |