Martha Wainwright and her late mother Kate McGarrigle have (at least) this in common: they both started families in New York, only to break the love connection and return to Montreal with their offspring after a hiatus of several years. Love Will Be Reborn is a diffraction of this path expressed honestly, artistically and symbolically. The title track of this studio album, her seventh since 2007, is a positive reinforcement from which the ten other tracks on the program flow, a sort of songwriting arc on the cycle of human emotions, more precisely from the end of one journey to the beginning of the next, all served in perfect disorder: discomfort, break-up, pain, confession, hope, comfort, and again the prospect of seducing or being seduced. Produced by Pierre Marchand, a great studio man and member of the extended family, this recording has no other objective than to serve Martha Wainwright’s voice and lyrics. The guitars, the keyboards, the percussions, the bass, the classic references (Americana, folk-rock, rock), everything is conceived to magnify what the interpreter and songwriter, who is at the very least seasoned, carries. This is certainly a very well-crafted album… which musically tells us little about the famous Montrealer. So what? The interest of Love Will Be Reborn lies elsewhere. When the word and the vocal melody dominate a song, one can be satisfied with chiseled arrangements and inhabited performances, in spite of the apparent conformism.
