Send "Sarah McLachlan " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Boston |
 Producing a strong pop album is probably cold comfort when the sacrifice is a marriage. But the collapse of Sarah McLachlan’s union gives her first album of new material in seven years a compelling pathos and narrative throughline that should resonate with the part of her fanbase familiar with romantic devastation. In other words, all of her fanbase.POP Sarah McLachlan, Laws of Illusion Arista If that sounds depressing, it is in some ways. (And it’s an added bummer that one of the few “happy’’ songs, “Loving You Is Easy,’’ doesn’t generate much excitement since the tempo is so plodding and McLachlan’s vocal so placid.) But from tremulous opener “Awakenings’’ (“The cracks began to show as soon as things got hard’’) to the gut-wrenching “Forgiveness’’ (“I don’t want your deceiving smile at my door’’), this is pop music as catharsis. They’re the kinds of songs whose melancholy is touching, but the melodious burnish on them leaves you feeling better. From a production standpoint, McLachlan and longtime coproducer Pierre Marchand haven’t lost a step. All of McLachlan’s sonic trademarks are present and accounted for — dreamy keyboard washes, lilting rhythms, that angelic voice. They’re combined with her raw emotion in a beguiling manner that ranges from ethereal to rollicking. “Heartbreak,’’ a twinkly and sly ode to outrunning sadness, would be a surefire hit if pop radio were to embrace it. (Out tomorrow) -- SARAH RODMAN...full text |
| Nytimes |
| Many of the songs on “Laws of Illusion,” Sarah McLachlan’s new album, end with her virtually by herself: just her voice and a minimum of accompaniment, alone in a quiet place. “Laws of Illusion” is Ms. McLachlan’s first album of new songs in seven years, and her first since the dissolution of her 11-year marriage to her band’s drummer, Ashwin Sood; they separated in 2008. The new album’s songs revolve around breaking up: the tension, the denial, the failed reconciliations, the anger, the reckoning, the aftermath. Titles tell the story: “Illusions of Bliss,” “Changes,” “Don’t Give Up on Us,” “Heartbreak.” The songs are as direct as Ms. McLachlan’s have ever been, and as finely turned. Ms. McLachlan has long been pop’s voice of compassion and consolation; in these songs she needs those comforts herself. “I’ve seen much more than I want to/So much anger so much pain,” she sings in “Love Come,” which appears twice on the album: once with an elaborate studio arrangement, and, as the album’s finale, performed more slowly on piano with a string orchestra. “A line is drawn and lives are torn apart/The wounds too hard to heal.” She hasn’t radically changed her music. Ms. McLachlan wrote all but one song herself or with her longtime producer, Pierre Marchand, and the album is as lush and measured as their previous collaborations. It’s a collection of ballads, hymns and waltzes, sung in long arcs of melody with a voice that enfolds its strength in breathy intimacy. Acoustic instruments gleam, with unearthly keyboards and electric guitars billowing up around them....full text |
| Sputnikmusic |
| When Sarah McLachlan released her landmark album, Surfacing, in 1997 it was a bit of a novelty. I’m not trying to imply that she was the only female vocalist to grace the airwaves around that time, but she did manage to break through on her own terms. While everyone else seemed to be trying to emulate Alanis Morissette’s abrasive style, Sarah released an album that proved that it was still ok to display a bit of vulnerability. Since that year, many artists have picked up on Sarah’s successful formula and their albums have been saturating the market with hardly an original idea between them. Meanwhile, it seemed that Sarah was content with removing herself from the public eye while allowing her record label to push out occasional live and compilation albums. With the release of her new album, Laws of Illusion, the question that requires asking is whether or not she can capture the attention of a fickle audience in an oversaturated market after seven years of silence – after listening to this album, the answer is a definite “yes”. Admittedly, part of the reason that Laws of Illusion is going to be so readily accepted is simply due to the fact that old fans will find a comforting familiarity that comes with Sarah’s vocals and the music that has become her modus operandi. Sarah McLachlan is still at her best when it’s just her voice and her acoustic guitar along with a bit of subtle accompaniment in the form of strings, piano or even the occasional electronic element. It has always been those smooth, lush arrangements that have allowed Sarah to wear her heart on her sleeve without turning every song into an oppressively cheerless engagement, and that is still the case on Laws of Illusion. Evidence of this can be found on a multitude of songs on this album, but probably no more so than on “Forgiveness” – a song that is actually about being unwilling or unable to forgive someone for what they’ve done. Despite all of the talk about the comforting familiarity inherent on this album, there might still be a few people that are a bit surprised. The reason is because the music has an occasional tendency to be a little more complicated (“involved” or “varied” might be better descriptors) than Surfacing and Afterglow. Some may hear the opening track, “Awakenings”, and decide that it’s a new direction for Sarah, but it’s really not. In order to figure out where the ideas behind songs such as “Awakenings” came from people would need to look back to Sarah’s earlier albums – specifically Touch and Solace. Those albums had a tendency to be a bit more “artsy” and musical than later releases, and it’s nice to see a bit of that return to Sarah’s sound. This is most obvious in the percussive arrangements that a few of the songs utilize as well as a slightly more expansive use of folk influences in some of the album’s melodies....full text |
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