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Oct 5, 2018As 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.
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Oct 8, 2018Marshall allows Wanderer to be about lots of things at once: such life-altering instances as motherhood and death as well as plentifully covered topics like love and relationships. Cat Power has stumbled at times during her lengthy and storied career, but on Wanderer, she gracefully lands on all four feet.
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Oct 8, 2018Marshall now has a manager, but Wanderer has that spooked strangeness of old. The grim reaper looms large. ... But there are tunes, too--pretty things like Horizon, which pays tribute to her family, while Marshall simultaneously eyes the exit.
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Oct 5, 2018Most of all though, Wanderer is an album about developing your own identity in an ever-changing, often troubling world. Arguably more than ever before, Cat Power has achieved that goal here.
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Oct 5, 2018Maybe 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.
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Oct 5, 2018Her 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.
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Oct 4, 2018Cat 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.
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Oct 4, 2018Understated, beautifully crafted and always emotionally involving, Wanderer shows an artist who has found strength in her convictions, and a new pace of life.
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Oct 4, 2018This album is a quiet triumph, the understated work of an artist honouring herself and her creativity.
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Oct 2, 2018Wanderer, although not explicitly confrontational, subtly undermines this longstanding and limited perception of What Cat Power Is. Marshall herself sits in the producer’s seat, and gone is the gloss of 2012’s Sun; these 11 songs are stripped back to the sparse bones of piano, guitar and that distinctive, smoky, Southern States voice.
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Oct 2, 2018Stylistically, 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 artis
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Q MagazineOct 1, 2018The swagger of Marshall's lyrics indicate a musician luxuriating in her maturity. [Nov 2018, p.105]
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UncutOct 1, 2018The set has both strength and a lean, lustrous beauty. [Nov 2018, p.26]
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MojoOct 1, 2018There's no danger of Wanderer outstaying its welcome, but while it's a brilliant return, it wouldn't be quite right too claim it as a triumph. Not because of the quality of these songs but because Wanderer is a record that know the cost of living and the price of losing all too well. [Oct 2018, p.82]
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Oct 1, 2018An observing eye, everywhere the spirit of Chan Marshall lingers, on a textured, fascinating album, one that feels as though you have been let loose in an endless hall of mirrors.
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Nov 6, 2018This is a record with gentleness and vulnerability in abundance, but it's carefully crafted--it knows itself, and it knows when it's finished.
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Oct 1, 2018Wanderer 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.
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Oct 5, 2018Wanderer drags just the tiniest bit. It speaks softly from the echoes of the best Cat Power moments, which means it doesn’t ice-pick you in the center of your most treasured insecurities the way some of her most celebrated music has.
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Oct 5, 2018Wanderer is a worthy listen, that keeps us chasing her, slowly, over the next ridgeline.
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Oct 4, 2018Wanderer lacks the polished fineness of a pop album, but it certainly presents a glimpse into Marshall's life as a woman, mother, and artist.
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Oct 4, 2018Time and again, Marshall has been reductively pegged as a gloomy singer-songwriter struggling with substance abuse and mental illness. But while her vulnerability here lends itself to melancholy, it’s also triumphant and resolute.
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Oct 2, 2018Marshall 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.
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Oct 2, 2018After 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. Artists like Cat Power have all been wanderers at some point, but she is the one in control here.
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Oct 1, 2018An intimate, multifaceted reflection of her always complex, frequently indistinct character. These often inscrutable songs offer kaleidoscopic glimpses into what seems like a complicated persona
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Oct 8, 2018Some of Wanderer is, frankly, quite dull, even if her irresolute darkness can still engulf your senses upon closer inspection. Marshall keeps us at a certain distance as if gazing into an incomplete photo book, leaving too many empty spaces to fill when there are so many other stories to tell.
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Oct 4, 2018Wanderer 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. For some, Cat Power will always sound slightly unfinished. For others, it is exactly that quality that makes her records ring with raw truth.
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Oct 4, 2018There’s nothing inherently wrong about Wanderer being mannered--but, unfortunately, the album’s subtlety is also often its undoing.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 12 out of 14
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Mixed: 1 out of 14
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Negative: 1 out of 14
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Nov 25, 2018
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Oct 12, 2018