A happily welcomed homecoming.
Sarah McLachlan returns to the music industry with a bang after an almost decade-long hiatus. Respect is more than earned in her new album Better Broken. Track six, a self-assured power ballad, titled “One In A Long Line,” proposes this very statement, singing “You don’t get to decide to whom I serve / ‘Cause in my world / Respect is earned.” She clearly achieves this, obtaining undoubted respect after creating an entire album of heartfelt honesty and a career spanning over three decades that built up the courage to do so.
McLachlan begins Better Broken with a track of the same name, consisting of polished, comforting vocals and heartbreaking lyrics, common threads woven throughout the entire album. She spices things up with an echoed backing track, subtly grabbing her listeners’ attention and pulling them into the world she has built.
McLachlan takes pride in showing off how adept she is with her choice of instruments on Better Broken, occasionally scattering trumpets and horns within vocal lulls to add a little more depth and excitement to her songs. “The Last To Go” is one of the best instances of this trumpet use, employing it in a beautiful outro as an oxymoronic calming surprise.
Calming is, ironically, one of the best ways to describe this album. Despite all of its anger and raw pain, McLachlan’s silky smooth voice can do nothing but soothe those with the pleasure of hearing it. “Only Way Out Is Through” pulls you in and keeps you as close as it can, like a hug in song form. It does an amazing job of highlighting McLachlan’s voice and stellar songwriting by pairing it with deep percussion and using a celesta rather than a keyboard, another instance of her key instrument choice. This celesta creates an ethereal tone that would’ve been otherwise unachievable with a piano, definitely doing its job of rounding out the album and upping the overall cohesion.
In fact, even the surprise feature on the album is incredibly cohesive. “Reminds Me” slowly introduces the sultry and heartfelt voice of Katie Gavin, lead singer of MUNA, through stunning harmonies, eventually making way for her own verse later in the song. Gavin’s solo discography has similar twangy instrumentation and evocative lyrics, so it feels almost as if Better Broken would’ve been incomplete without a Gavin feature.
Better Broken is a mature album that truly proves McLachlan’s musical skills age like fine wine. It’s refreshingly truthful and shows weakness so unabashedly that the weakness turns into something that can only be categorized as bravery. If singer-songwriters everywhere were to hone their own talents the way McLachlan did with this album, the musical world would be infinitely more beautiful.
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