Good Souls Better Angels
| Lucinda Williams
Good Souls Better Angels
Good Souls Better Angels is a 2020 studio album by American singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, released on Thirty Tigers. Announced in February for an April 24 release, it was preceded by the track "Man Without a Soul", a critique of Donald Trump. It has received positive reviews from critics. -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Chicago Sun Times
It’s fiery, righteous and emphatic, like the soundtrack to someone leaving a murder scene.
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The Irish Times
The result is 12 tracks that punch with a dark, almost biblical vengeance but also, importantly, balance vitriol with solace, hellfire with a hand in need.
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PopMatters
Better Souls Good Angels was written and recorded well before the pandemic. But the album, with its darkness tinged with glimmers of hope, its rage touched with tenderness, is very much one for our terrible time.
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The Independent
The American singer-songwriter has gone back to her bluesy roots for a record full of fire and brimstone.
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Pitchfork
Drawing as much from punk as roadhouse blues, Lucinda Williams’ loud and unsparing new album is some of the heaviest, most inspiring music of her career.
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Louder Sound
Lucinda Williams’ 14th studio effort chimes with the times like no other.
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Paste Magazine
Williams has certainly done some of her best handiwork with a blues-rock record that is so of-this-moment, it’d be crazy not to acknowledge it as one of the most important of the year so far.
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The Line of Best Fit
As a songwriter and a storyteller, she’s simply never recorded anything quite like it. After so long in the game, it’s miraculous to hear her take such a fresh approach to her sound.
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The Firenote
On “Good Souls Better Angels,” Lucinda Williams delivers another collection of great songs perfectly attuned to this journey we are on together.
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Pop Culture Beast
Williams does save the best until last with the closing seven minutes of “Good Souls”. It’s a gentler track, a plea to the angels and to good friends to give her the strength to stay strong. It’s a great and surprising end to an unexpected, bold new album from a legend.
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Meaww
This album could not have come at a better time for a nation that is engulfed in chaos and disillusionment in recent times, and Williams takes no prisoners in this furious, glorious masterpiece.
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The Young Folks
Good Souls Better Angels has a handful of undeniably strong and current songs that benefit from Lucinda Williams’ grounded Americana-rock performance style.
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Belles and Gals
with a stripped back and atmospheric sound, however lyrically she brings a spirited and affecting political dimension to her music, reflecting our troubled times, delivered with her trademark sincerity, but also heartfelt anger.
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Americana Highways
Angry, political, and urgent, it’s the work of a woman who’s realized she has more songs behind her than ahead, and she’s not going to hold back on her truth.
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Liverpool sound and Vision
Good souls don’t always make a good example of an angel with mercy and yet Lucinda Williams, whilst arguing a case for anger, of intense beauty, is an example of a heavenly voice capturing the mood and offering to clip the wings of those who don’t see the issues facing humanity.
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Hot Press
It would appear that this was a record Williams had to make, and, as I’ve said, it’s a long way from easy going, but when it catches you, you’re reminded of what makes her so special in the first place.
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The Times
tough album for tougher times has a tender heart.
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I News
A naked show of vulnerability on this fierce new album.
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London Evening Standard
Blazing, storm-ravaged rock.
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Riff Magazine
Good Souls Better Angels is, in its better moments, a fascinating listen for fans of the edgier side of roots rock and Americana.
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Sound & Soul of Central Georgia
Williams calls GSBA the rock record she always wanted to make, and I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say it’s her strongest effort to date.
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Pop Culture Beast
. Williams does save the best until last with the closing seven minutes of “Good Souls”. It’s a gentler track, a plea to the angels and to good friends to give her the strength to stay strong. It’s a great and surprising end to an unexpected, bold new album from a legend.
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mxdwn
Good Souls Better Angels is one of the most profound, obstinate rock ‘n’ roll albums of modern alt-country, rock, and blues. Williams was once a romantic singer but now a virtuous activist, using her record as an icon of social protest.
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Highway Queens
Over the course of her career Lucinda has brought that same poetic, inclusive spirit to her songwriting. Now she reflects the state of the world back to us, and we are right there, writing every word with her. On Good Souls Better Angels together we rage against the machine and rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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Stack
On her latest album, claiming “It’s all come full circle”, she gets back to the the gritty roots of her early days.
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The World News
A doom-laden but defiant album.
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PCN Magazine
This is a good album- one that want to actually sit down and listen to, then listen to again. Whilst this album is a product of its time, it's one that should last.
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Americana Music Show
Musically it demands your attention but lyrically it’s a rant. This may give it a limited shelf life.
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Rush on Rock
Good Souls Better Angels will set pulses racing and heads spinning. At a time when lives have been turned upside down this record confirms that personal conflict is a familiar constant.
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