Patty Griffin: 1000 Kisses

No one is able to more profoundly depict the tragedy of love’s disintegration than Griffin, who is blessed with a voice of intense raw emotion and a stunning ability to write utterly simple verses that avoid the trap of banality. On the stellar “Be Careful,” she delicately croons, “Be careful how you bend me/Be careful where you send me/Be careful how you end me,” epitomizing her penchant for a beauty that is both aching and palpable. On “Rain,” the album opener, she tells the familiar story of clinging to a lover who has become hardened: “Strange how hard it rains now/Rows and rows of big, dark clouds/But I’m still alive underneath this shroud...”

Although it may defy traditional categorization to a certain extent, the triumph of 1000 Kisses is that it does not try to be a pop record. Instead, it exudes the confidence of an album wholly comfortable in its own skin, a rare phenomenon in this age of manufactured everything. Griffin’s reemergence on the scene will no doubt go a long way in restoring the faith of those who have become disillusioned by the contemporary singer-songwriter.

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