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Carpenter’s weepy soul-searching makes The Age of Miracles feel like a cheap copy of the genuine introspection that made her previous records so intriguing.
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Her 10th studio album, "The Age of Miracles" (and second on Rounder following a run with Columbia that yielded five Grammy Awards), adds a familiar yet essential new chapter to her rich catalog.
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Mary Chapin Carpenter doesn't sound especially concerned with how much product she'll move on The Age of Miracles; instead, she's made an album that speaks with honesty and clarity about the mysteries of love and fate, and she communicates well enough that it's hard to imagine anyone who has ever thought about the ways life can turn on a dime not being moved by the beauty of this music.
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Those songs are all fine enough for what they are, but they don't offer any significant variations on the meditations on love and aging that Carpenter has released for the better part of two decades.
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Her voice is still pure and graceful, and her viewpoint is still optimistic, but there’s a noticeable lack of energy in these ballad-heavy songs.
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If there’s not any huge shift from the album’s stylistic composition, at least it rarely sounds homogenous or monotonous. Still, at times, one wishes Carpenter would take more sonic risks or ditch some of the New Age metaphors that can sound frivolous.
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Carpenter remains one of the most thoughtful writers around, but lately she's been reluctant to leave her musical comfort zone.
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Under The RadarOf the 12 tracks, "4 June 1989," "I Was A Bird," and "I Have Need For Solitude" stand out, but overall the album is disappointing. [Winter 2010, p.70]
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Q MagazineEmphathetic, female-friendly and always one step removed from the Nashville machine, Carpenter brought a welcome touch of class to country music in the early '90s. Though she's nowhere near the force of yore, those same attributes shine through on The Age of Miracles. [Jun 2010, p.132]