Album Review: Cat Power - Wanderer

Regardless of the artist’s intentions, some music just works best as background noise.

On Cat Power's tenth studio album, Wanderer, singer-songwriter Chan Marshall has inadvertently created the perfect soundtrack for any hip cafe that refuses to add milk to your coffee. You can picture any of these songs going well with the phrase, “Actually, our coffees are perfect just the way they are!” 

Maybe “songs” is too strong of a word. The 12 tracks on offer here are more like swirling ruminations on singular melodic phrases that are often pretty grey and quiet. None of these tracks are horrible or even bad by any means. Everything is tightly produced with a few flourishes of digital sheen here and there. But the fact that nothing here will grab you even after repeated listens means that the lengthy, meditative nature of these sadcore tunes does little to justify their own inaccessibility.

Lyrically, Marshall seems to have poured a lot of love and thought into the lyrics of Wanderer. It’s the usual stories of lost love, feeling out of touch with modern society, life on the road-yada-yada-yada, and it all hangs together in a neat way. Secret nuggets of lyrical gold may reveal themselves to dedicated listeners eventually, but the problem here is that Marshall has forgotten that good lyrics will only smack you in the face if they’ve been delivered on the wind of a great melody. And sadly those are nowhere to be found on Wanderer.