- Record Label: Highway 20 Records
- Release Date: Apr 24, 2020
Buy Now
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Apr 27, 2020As fine as that is, it comes from someone who is capable of better work, and though this is still recommended to fans, it's ultimately a good album from someone who has been consistently great in the past.
-
Apr 21, 2020One of the most searing, potent and passionate albums you’ll hear this year.
-
Apr 24, 2020Williams’ anger is reflected in the music, which tempers her primal electric blues and country with garagey punk and heaving rock. Yet there’s also empathy, hope and an unyielding sense of humanity at work here.
-
Apr 21, 2020Most fully realized work in more than 20 years. [May 2020, p.101]
-
Apr 23, 2020There's so much more to Good Souls than that aforementioned fiery fare. She and her band make "Bad News Blues" more than live up to its title, both in tone and lyrics. ... Many of those tracks suit the despair, rage and hope of the moment, while also speaking to enough big truths to be timeless.
-
Apr 21, 2020There are songs where she’s smoothed out the edges somewhat. That, with the raw instrumentation framing it, makes this one of her stronger vocal outings.
-
MojoApr 21, 2020There are straight-ahead, stripped down, old-style blues rockers. ... Also there just the blues - slow beauties that seem to be about depression and being lost, that feel more personal than political. [Jun 2020, p.88]
-
May 8, 2020There are moments on Good Souls Better Angels that recall mid-’90s Neil Young in its focused fury and righteous anger – some may be put off by the rather grim tone, but if you’re seeking a soundtrack for the end of the world, you’ll find none better than this.
-
Apr 24, 2020Good Souls Better Angels is proof that even legends like Lucinda don’t just leave their best work behind them one day: They keep writing and making as long as they can, challenging people to listen to their newest music with the notion that it could be some of their best.
-
Apr 28, 2020While her recent records have used their sprawl to navigate a wide array of styles and moods, she now finds a range that pulls her into focus. It is roots music, bursting from the ground, changing form in the light of day.
-
Apr 27, 2020Better Souls Good Angels was written and recorded well before the pandemic. But the album, with its darkness tinged with glimmers of hope, its rage touched with tenderness, is very much one for our terrible time.
-
Q MagazineApr 21, 2020It's the voice that carries it all: rawer and more rousing by the minute. [Jun 2020, p.108]
-
May 29, 2020What continues to both disarm and comfort about Williams as she glides into her late 60s on the crest of an extraordinary career now entering its fourth decade, is how adept she remains at shifting mood, tone, emotion and musical palette at the drop of a plectrum
-
Rolling StoneMay 5, 2020Her best LP since 1998's landmark Car Wheels On A Gravel Road. [May 2020, p.89]
-
Apr 27, 2020If there’s a downside to the electricity in Williams’ veins on Good Souls Better Angels, it’s that the gentler material doesn’t have quite the same impact.
-
Apr 23, 2020There are moments when it all starts to feel a little bit too doom-laden. But Williams saves not only the best, but the most hopeful, until last. ... An impressive but relentless album.
-
Apr 24, 2020As a songwriter and a storyteller, she’s simply never recorded anything quite like it. After so long in the game, it’s miraculous to hear her take such a fresh approach to her sound.
-
Apr 24, 2020The guitar playing throughout is fantastic, rhythm and lead entwining around Williams’s beautiful, ruined voice, rising to a fury on tough rockers. ... It is an angry record but one that can make you shake your fist into the void and feel that, at least, no matter how bad things might look, you are not alone.
-
UncutApr 21, 2020She writes about toxic masculinity and abusive relationships with racing candour, and she sings with a fresh, unnerving snarl that weaponises her signature twang. [May 2020, p.35]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 17 out of 18
-
Mixed: 1 out of 18
-
Negative: 0 out of 18
-
Jun 18, 2020
-
May 1, 2020
-
Apr 27, 2020