Patty Griffin - Downtown Church reviews
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| Popmatters |
 It’s hard to think of an artist in a more enviable position than Patty Griffin. Fifteen years ago, she had a guitar, a sweet voice, and a crush on Bruce Springsteen, but no recording contract. Today she’s perched among the elite singer-songwriters of her generation. She has released five critically acclaimed records, each more accomplished than the last, won over a legion of ardent followers, and sold many millions of records as a songwriter for everyone from the Dixie Chicks and Bette Midler to Solomon Burke and Jessica Simpson. At age 45, Griffin has mountains of talent, artistic freedom, and money to do whatever she wants, and this year, she’s exercising those freedoms to make her sixth studio album, Downtown Church, both her first collection of gospel songs and her first album to rely almost exclusively on other songwriters.
The idea sprang from EMI Christian Music Group honcho Peter York, who pitched the idea to Griffin. It was an inspired concept, given Griffin’s way with her own gospel-influenced originals, most notably “Love Throw a Line” and “Standing” from 2004’s Impossible Dream and especially “Up to the Mountain (MLK Song)” from 2007’s Children Running Through, a song blown up huge with covers by Kelly Clarkson and Susan Boyle. Those particular albums furthered Griffin’s reputation as one her generation’s finest songwriters, transcending the teeming girl-with-a-guitar genre, and defined her signature style of toggling between uptempo hard strummers like “Getting Ready” and achingly gorgeous gentle folk like “Burgundy Shoes”....full text |
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| Avclub |
| Something about recording in a church seems to raise musicians’ level of focus. It’s almost as if they become more aware that someone might be paying attention. Patty Griffin’s first gospel album, Downtown Church, was recorded in a historic Nashville place of worship, with the aid of producer Buddy Miller and a band of veteran Music Row players, and it’s an unusually focused, contemplative record, even though Griffin’s choice of material reflects her status as a self-described “lapsed Catholic.” Downtown Church includes gospel classics like “If I Had My Way” and “Wade In The Water,” alongside aspirational rockabilly rave-ups like “Move Up,” but Griffin balances the expected with unconventional songs like the rowdy “I Smell A Rat,” the funereal “Death’s Got A Warrant,” and the Latin acoustic ballad “Virgen De Guadalupe.” Though heartfelt, Downtown Church comes off as a little generic at times, landing squarely in the well-stocked category of “tasteful, intelligent, unruffled roots music.” But the Griffin-penned “Little Fire” and “Coming Home To Me”—both of which deal with the power of faith from multiple angles—frame the rest of the songs elegantly, while conveying her wariness. When Downtown Church ends with the lovely traditional hymn “All Creatures Of Our God And King,” the power of the sentiment and of Griffin’s voice carries its own pure quality, comforting to believers and skeptics alike....full text |
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| Pastemagazine |
The details behind Patty Griffin’s seventh release are intriguing enough without listening to a single song: The entire record was cut in a 160-year-old Presbyterian church that once welcomed Andrew Jackson and survived the Civil War as a hospital for Union soldiers. There’s something about Griffin’s trilling pipes ricocheting through this vast and timeworn sanctuary that paints the album in an otherworldly, eternal hue as she dips deeply into gospel traditions.
On pastoral lullaby “House of Gold,” Griffin belts through the sleepy ambience of organ and guitar, denying earth’s most precious metals for her faith in an invisible grace. She then swiftly shifts to fire-and-brimstone judgments like “Death’s Got A Warrant” and “I Smell A Rat.” Despite such drastic turns, the record retains Griffin’s unquenchable yearning for the heavenly world to come....full text |
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