- It’s kind of reassuring to hear that Sarah Mary Chadwick has been embracing therapy. I really struggled with her last album, Roses Always Die and it’s truly brutal depictions of alcoholism, depression, dysfunctional sex and, well, the list goes on. Ironically, but, perhaps predictably, it’s what has made her more recent work so impressive. You might not expect a woman who once fronted sludgemeisters Batrider to have such an eloquent way with words, but she’s as much a Bukowskian poet as a rocker. In a way it’s the opposite of Billie Holliday whose personal tragedy leaked through more in her failing health and crumbling voice than in what she’d let on in her songwriting. Sarah Mary Chadwick has no such reticence and the combination of lyrical beauty and utter, personal degradation is both heartbreaking and compelling.
That’s why it’s really good to know that she’s been putting a lot of effort into mental health. The thought of someone going through such a dark night of the soul by themselves, is like knowing one of your friends is experiencing suicidal thoughts and deciding not to offer your help. In recent interviews however, Sarah Mary Chadwick has positively gushed about her engagement with Lacanian psychoanalysis; so, good.
Music too, is -obviously, you don’t need to be told- an outlet for her. The record of anguish and struggle continues unabated on Sugar Still Melts In The Rain, an unflinching account because it’s better to put it out there for all to see than to continue living it alone. In that way it’s not very different from much of Chadwick’s output, so it might be good to focus on what has changed here.
You’ll get it right away, it’s the instruments: the cheap synth and tinny drum machine, clicking away like a bargain-basement trap track have been traded out for warmer piano chords and synth work and the occasional live drumkit and bass. Arming herself with some of the most traditional singer-songwriter paraphernalia puts Chadwick in the position to deliver the most wrenching, emotional blows of the genre, putting me in mind of The Pretenders doing I’ll Stand By You. In a strange way, however, the new approach feels slightly less appropriate. It’s partly that the cheap and nasty instrumentation seemed somehow more fitting for the skidrow subject matter. It’s also that being a crooner is not a natural fit for Sarah Mary Chadwick and the cracks in her DIY musicianship are much more obvious in the piano bar setting. At its best, like on the album’s title track, everything comes together and Chadwick’s cracked voice rises high with a tatterdemalion glory, a bit like Marianne Faithfull, though not quite that wrecked.
I also get the feeling that, often, Sarah Mary Chadwick really treats the music as a secondary consideration: it just serves as a vehicle for her story, the testimony of her life which has to come out, any way it can. Take a song like Wind Wool, with its repetitive melody ticking over and over. It’s the simplest adornment, so simple it almost fades away as Chadwick recounts the loss of a close friend. “Some people don’t say what they think, but you did / And I miss it now nobody talks.” Profoundly traumatic, the kind of empathy that is so intense it nearly suffocates; this is also Sarah Mary Chadwick at her best.
I’m not really certain why such intense anguish should be a thing that grabs me so strongly. I feel a bit like a moth drawn to a flame or like how people who self harm say that it makes them feel more alive. I also feel more than a bit guilty trying to explain it. It is some consolation that Sarah Mary Chadwick has some help on her difficult path and that, at least for the moment -signings to Sinderlyn and all- it is providing a career of sorts. Whatever else you might say, there’s something very real, incredibly honest, completely giving in someone who feels they have to offer so much of themselves. I’m not sure if I’ve got a handle on my reasons, but I feel just as compelled to bear witness to it.
- Chris Cobcroft.