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MY BETTER SELF
RAZOR & TIE
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Sweet-voiced, sharp-tongued Dar Williams has always played it a little too safe to break beyond her loyal folkie following, so it’s nice to hear her gambling a bit with her sixth studio album — and even nicer to see that paying off. Low-key covers of Pink Floyd and Neil Young give My Better Self a subtly harder edge, and a handful of polished, bittersweet pop productions suggest that Williams has been listening to Aimee Mann. Thank the November 2004 blues for "Beautiful Enemy" and "Empire," two urgently poetic state-of-the-union laments that recall Phil Ochs’s best work. These topical departures give the more typical confessional singer-songwriter numbers room to breathe, so the sentimental "So Close to My Heart" and the cutting "Teen for God" don’t wear out their welcome. Macho types scared off in the past by the estrogen levels of Williams’s music might still get skittish around this one. But for those left lukewarm by her back catalogue for more legitimate reasons, My Better Self lives up to its title.
Dar Williams + Girlyman | Calvin Theatre, 19 King St, Northampton | Nov 18 | 413.584.1444.
