After a 14-year hiatus, The Chicks released a new album on Friday titled ‘Gaslighter’. Never one to pull any punches, this album basically serves as a timeline of lead singer Natalie Maines’ divorce from actor Adrian Pasdar. The Chicks’ signature fiddle sound is alive and well, mixed in with a little swamp and a lot of heart.
The beginning quarter of this album is all upbeat, with a glaring sense of anger. Basically, Maines wants the world to know that the man everyone thinks they know is a phony. He fooled her for a long time, but she’s ready to tell everyone how he really is. Title track ‘Gaslighter’ and emotional ballad ‘Everybody Loves You’ basically have the same message, but from two different perspectives. The former tells how he led her on for so long and told her what she wanted to hear, only to change his tune once he felt something better came along. The latter references his fans who only see the good parts that he wants them to see. Anger creeps up again on ‘Tights on My Boat’, where she details how she discovered his affair and hopes that karma comes for him. This song in particular has a welcoming tone, indicating that she hopes the listeners will empathize with her situation.
The end of the collection is where Maines gets vulnerable. She talks about wishing his new life is worth the pain he caused on ‘Hope It’s Something Good’. She expresses her desire to not be strung along in a relationship she knows is over on ‘Set Me Free.’ The biggest emotional wallop though comes in the form of ‘Young Man.’ It’s basically a heartbreaking love letter to her two young sons, saying she will do the best she possibly can, to raise them to be good people. The pain in her voice is apparent when she’s telling them that she understands they need to forge their own path and that it’s difficult to navigate their teen years without a proper father figure.
I’m not necessarily sure there’s a future ‘Wide Open Spaces’ or ‘Not Ready to Make Nice’ on this record, but after 14 years on hiatus and a career shrouded in controversy, I’m not sure what they’re looking for is hit songs. The Chicks have always been a group that stands up for what they believe in, and the true fans will stick by them. The repetition on most of these songs shows that they just want to be heard. They didn’t just dip their toes back into the music scene, they did a cannonball. And their true fans wouldn’t have it any other way. To listen to ‘Gaslighter’ click here.
