Feted by Emmylou Harris and Lucinda Williams, Patty Griffin has earned her place at the top table of American roots singer-songwriters. Always an intensely powerful live performer, Servant Of Love is her most introspective and meditative collection to date with some tracks perhaps inspired by the break-up of her relationship with Robert Plant. Griffin’s haunting voice echoes over a plaintive piano on the title-track, which finds her mining the inner recesses of her soul. A muted trumpet plays in the background, adding to the sombre atmosphere, while she sings with a wild abandon that is almost unsettling. ‘Hurt A Little While’ isn’t a million miles away from the kind of material she performed while a member of Plant’s Band Of Joy ensemble. But
this time it’s clearly personal; over a smouldering, bluesy rhythm she declares that she “Might cry a little longer than a little while... [but] one of these days I’m going laugh again.”
Elsewhere, gritty guitars and a meaty rhythm section underpin ‘Gunpowder’ while ‘Good And Gone’ is more back-porch fare, with Delta blues acoustic guitar. A lone piano backdrops the poignant ballad ‘You Never Asked Me’, which cuts close to the bone in its ruminations on relationship breakdown. She’s back Dublin this month – and not to be missed!