Nanci Griffith
Album: Intersection
Label: Proper
Tracks: 12
Website: www.nancigriffith.com

"It's emotional for me, and it's personal, and it makes my heart pound, thinking I'm going to be totally exposed here…I've had a hard life, and I write it down…Hell no, I'm not alright"

Those three comments help to sum why "Intersections" is a departure from Nanci Griffith's previous nineteen albums. This is an album from someone that has stood at a crossroads and looked in a different direction. It's a very affirming album one that says that just because someone appears to be strong that doesn't mean it's not been hard, times where the whole has broken and needs putting back together, fractures given time to rebond.

I can't hear a Nanci Griffith song without thinking about a dear departed family friend, who was a huge fan. Nanci is one of the finest observational songwriters of hers and many others generation she writes musical poetry that relates to many situations you can relate to, a musical social worker if you like and like all people that work in that space, she needs a little me time.

"Intersection" is a me time album, more introspective than the previous cuts, it's got the same sense of observation but it switches more from the third to the first person, a look closer to home and within, the result is an album that can seem a little raw, at times almost intrusive, but one which in genuinely moving and one with a real sense of fight.

"Hell No (I'm Not Alright)" is the song on the album that best sums that up. When something has happened that really hurts how often do we reply in a mumbling voice, I'm fine, when we should be voicing what we really feel. Nanci's true gift is by being to almost turn it into two songs at once, by overlaying her feelings about the current political situation over the song giving it plenty of scope for interpretation. It doesn't do any harm that it sounds like a Buddy Holly song when he was totally at the top of his game.

Top of the game is a great description for the album, it's very difficult to find a fault with the album, like the Gretchen Peter's album "Hello Cruel World" there is an essential honesty that runs through the core of the album. It is tough out there, it's tough inside as well and now is not the time to shy away from standing up and being counted on either score.

There is also something a little more European about the album, not in the sound, this is an album rooted in Americana and American folk sounds, but more around the approach to the songs, the way the words come out, that all is not rosy and sometimes just expressing our anger is not enough.

If Nanci was worried that it was a mistake exposing herself to this degree she shouldn't be. "Intersections" is an album that stands apart from a lot of her work, but it's definitely on a par with the best of them.

Neil King