All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Entertainment Weekly

As bummers go, West is a beautiful one — akin to Bob Dylan's Time Out of Mind.

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100

The Guardian

What makes Williams such an important country artist, besides the excellent songwriting and that sultry, scarred southern voice, is her skill at stretching the genre's boundaries while mining its essence.

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Amazon.com

West may well be her best album. It is easily her most musically adventurous, and often her most lyrically inspired.

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All Music Guide

West is flawless; it is actually destined to become a classic.

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Boston Globe

Fortunately, the alt-country singer-songwriter’s gifts of soul mining are so acute that the songs — inspired by her mother’s passing and a wrenching breakup — enrich as well as exhaust, and engender cautious optimism.

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Rolling Stone

Williams remains a premier artist. [22 Feb 2007, p.73]

Hot Press

West works because it juxtaposes a sense of vulnerability with a desire not to stay down for long, and is tinged with a sense of realism not always present in her rivals.

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Q Magazine

It's a long, hard haul, but this is an outstanding talent at the top of her game. [Mar 2007, p.116]

Mojo

Most [tracks] are brilliant. [Apr 2007, p.97]

ShakingThrough.net

Perhaps an unrefined but fiery bar band would have been better suited to accompany such nakedly raw material.

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The Onion (A.V. Club)

When the group tries to explore the other, louder side of its sound, West sounds slapped-together.

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Hartford Courant

For all its sorrowful beauty, "West" is often excruciating to hear as Williams mourns the death of her mother and a stormy relationship that ended badly.

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Observer Music Monthly

Often harrowing, although Williams's emotional odyssey finds resolution on the title track.

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Spin

Let those [few sub-par] parts slide into the ocean and enjoy the remaining hour of perfectly golden brilliance. [Feb 2007, p.89]

Billboard

Willner's soulful production, elegant and layered, recalls Daniel Lanois' work with Emmylou Harris. [17 Feb 2007]

Prefix Magazine

The tracks that don't work misfire spectacularly.

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Los Angeles Times

For most of the album, [the music] remains resolutely deliberate and restrained, without her usual soaring and rocking release.

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PopMatters

With its antiseptic production and complete lack of warmth, and the subsequent disconnect between singer and song, I can’t yet listen to West without wondering when Lucinda’s going to release the proper version.

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Uncut

An album of sometimes stark simplicity, West is in many places rather drab and charmless. [Mar 2007, p.72]

Blender

The album is often duller than its predecessors, with bummed-out banalities repeated from previous records; at times, she seems to be dragging herself through her own songs.

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Trouser Press

The dolorous and enervated West reins in some (not all) of Williams' willful stylistic misadventures while holding fast to her golden triumvirate of death, love and longing.

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Austin Chronicle

She's been down this gravel road before, and those car wheels sound precariously close to spinning in place.

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Village Voice

If the poisoned well of bad love has soused some of her most brutally detailed observations (see crushers like Essence's "Reason to Cry" or World Without Tears's "Overtime," for starters), confronting mortality seems to have thrown Williams into wandering, formless meditations.

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Stylus Magazine

A shame an NPR market supercilious of the mercenary likes of Sheryl Crow has forced her to record songs that Crow herself would consider models of autumnal acuity.

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NOW Magazine

A resounding disappointment.

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cokemachineglow

Coming from an unknown artist, West would be disappointing if it was anything at all; coming from Williams, it’s entirely abysmal.

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Pitchfork

She spends so much time rambling about her pain that she never bothers even to try to make us feel it.

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The New York Times

Ms. Williams’s strong suit is going simple and direct, but “West” loses its focus and goes wide and long. It develops a grandiosity problem. [12 Feb 2007]

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this album is 7.7 (out of 10) based on 44 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Mike musicguy gave it a7:
Remember the most depressing Neil Young album you ever heard? Well Lucinda goes beyond it. I like it, I respect it,its real good in a Lenny Cohen kind of way( most cuts) but can't see myself playing it much except when I want to be bummed out or am already there. She's your cup of tea . I wish she'd switch it up a little. Surely shes happy about something ???

Janice C. gave it a10:
This CD is ahead of its time; it has legs and you know it.

Vance H. gave it a9:
Count the number of pompous, bombastic sentences in the negative reviews of this album. That number will tell you a lot. West is low key,contemplative and beautifully produced. What a crime!

Darnell gave it an8:
Lucinda is tortured, but quite thoughtful here. A little forced on some lyrics and music, but generally easy to overlook the shortcomings with the highs here. She is touching many nerves most wouldn't dare and has put forth her petitions towards healing. Not a classic, but give it time.

takea look ateverything gave it a0:
I wanted to find something nwew in this but come on! LW writes the same thing over and over again! I mean, ten years ago she was writing these words. "I'm pissed off and drunk and lonely. You left me. I'm going to get you back. You'll see. You're not a man. You're a line for a song." As a man, I find it sexist and hypocritical as all get out. I'm just so over reading about these poor men in Lucinda's ever changing tumultuous personal life who, once they finally get the sense she's just using them for drama value, leave her and then are gutted and fried so she can get revenge and another paycheck from her record company. I thought it was new. A decade ago. Grow up Miss Williams. At nearly sixty years old, it's about time.

doglove vee gave it a10:
West is best! I thought she could never out do her previous work, but I can't play anything else after this. This album is flawless, perfect. She is the most brilliant songwriter/singer alive. Tom Waits would like these songs.

Dale M gave it a5:
The music on this album is slow and monotonous. Lucinda's voice is as beautiful as ever but she seems to not even be trying. The album lacks the passion of her previous albums.

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