Review: 'Gaslighter' Gets Personal, Ranks High

Yes, "Gaslighter" is The Chicks' first album since shortening their name – for the left-leaning trio, this shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone – and their rationale for doing so can be read here.

The album is also their first studio effort since "Taking the Long Way" in 2006. In the 14 years since, lead singer Natalie Maines released a fantastic debut solo album, "Mother" (2013), and Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer joined forces for Court Yard Hounds, releasing a self-titled album in 2010 and its follow-up, "Amelita," in 2013. "Gaslighter" is also the trio's first album since Maines' divorce from actor Adrian Pasdar after nearly 20 years of marriage, which was finalized in December 2019. To say this informs the album's contents is an understatement. At one point, Pasdar sought access to Maines' music "over concerns it might violate a confidentiality clause in their prenuptial agreement." Maines never spells out exactly what happened, or how exactly he manipulated her psychologically. Everything is implied. Moreover, these songs represent the reflections, emotional responses, and insights of the betrayed party in a relationship.

The title track opens the album with a bang, a driving country rocker with Maines' resilient and defiant delivery. The song confronts marriage vows broken because of infidelity ("boy you know exactly what you did on my boat"), astutely seeing right through the subject ("you know you lie best when you lie to you"). The song doesn't spell out why he wants, as Maines sings, "all my money and you'll gladly walk away." But that doesn't matter. These zingers (pardon the somewhat trite term) are underscored by the song's deeper emotional undercurrent. And this is only the beginning.

Even a song like "Tights on My Boat" could have descended to tabloid salaciousness – I mean, look at the title – but ultimately it does not. Maines sends her ex on his way: "you can tell that girl who left her tights on my boat that she can have you now." Gaslighting is also addressed here, through emotional manipulation to cover up an affair: "you came to visit on tour and you made me cry, wouldn't speak to me for weeks and now I know why."

"Sleep at Night" confides with astonishment, "my husband's girlfriend's husband just called me up; how messed up is that?" As if that weren't enough, "remember – you brought her to our show at the Hollywood Bowl, she said 'I love you, I'm such a fan'; I joked that 'you can love me as long as you don't love my man.'" But any laughing here is incredulous, as Maines intones, "there's nothing funny about that." And later, in "My Best Friend's Wedding," Maines takes hope from watching her best friend marry a second time, "I've never seen her look more happy; I guess from ashes, we can really grow."

Elsewhere on the album, songs comfort children impacted by divorce ("Young Man"), contend with the end of a relationship ("Hope it's Something Good"), long to move forward (album closer "Set Me Free"), tap into one's own sense of strength and self-empowerment ("For Her" and "Juliana Calm Down"), and express post-divorce, middle-age desire for new love ("Texas Man").

About halfway through, the socio-political "March March" offers a slight reprieve from the personal. Specific examples are cited briefly and for the purpose of giving impetus for protest: The Stoneman Douglas High School shooting ("standing with Emma and our sons and daughters"), patriarchal control over women ("tell the ol' boys in the white bread lobby what they can and can't do with their bodies"), and the urgency of climate change ("temperatures are risin', cities are sinkin' "). The larger takeaway encourages us to fearlessly use our voices to speak out against injustice.

Where the more "confessional" elements of the album are concerned – and "confessional" is always a slippery term where the performative is concerned; Joni Mitchell once questioned such summations of her work, "to what did I confess?" – Maines' candor works well. Her no-nonsense, direct and affective rhetoric is easy to connect with. Not only that, but it's necessary, because of the upper-class images scattered throughout: Moving to California so her ex can have a Hollywood career, he cheated on her boat with another Hollywood insider, introduces his mistress backstage to his wife at her Hollywood Bowl concert, he demands all her money to walk away. Such imagery doesn't exactly reflect the lives of people who aren't wealthy celebrities. But what saves these songs from descending into mere gossip column voyeurism is how Maines buffers the specifics of her experience with articulations of more commonly shared emotional responses.

Musically, the album is a logical next step from "Taking the Long Way," sharing its pivot toward pop. The Chicks collaborate with new faces such as producer and multi-instrumentalist Jack Antonoff (of the bands Fun and the Bleachers), and co-writers Teddy Geiger (on "Sleep at Night"), Ariel Rechtshaid (on "For Her"), and St. Vincent (on "Young Man"). Synths, loops and flourishes in songs such as "For Her," "My Best Friend's Wedding" and "Tights on My Boat" augment without ever overtaking the Chicks' country-oriented style. The biggest departures are "March March" and "Juliana Calm Down," the former strongly reminiscent of Peter Gabriel's more ambient works and the latter recalling St. Vincent. Maguire's violin, Strayer's banjo and their harmony vocals are the only identifiably Chicks' markers in either track, and those sonics allow both songs to fit in the larger context of the album. Besides, it wouldn't really be the Chicks without those rich harmony vocals, which are prominent throughout, thankfully. In the end, "Gaslighter" is an emotionally challenging listen, an ambitious evolution of the Chicks' sound revealing complexities and nuances with repeated listens.

The Chicks
"Gaslighter"
$11.98 (CD) and $32.98 (vinyl)
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