Three years after You Are Free, Chan Marshall finally resurfaces, recruiting a seasoned band to help her record a beautiful, sprawling countryish album in --- just narrowly missing more Harvest parallels --- Memphis. In a clever move that promises a shred of confidence (!) until you actually hear the thing, she misleadingly titles the album, and its opening track, "The Greatest." As in "'once I wanted to be' but the dream's over and that sucks," not "here I am / rock you like a hurricane."

So, ok, the Memphis backing band notwithstanding, you've heard her cover this kind of ground before, and, honestly, it'd be just another patented Cat Power minor-key ballad without the expanded arrangement. It sacrifices some of the overwhelmingly direct personal connection of her sparser songs, sure, but the string swells that introduce the chorus are huge, and wisely kept to a few bars to not overdo the effect. Like the seldomly used backing vocals that add another minor layer to the track, or the short, final melody that ices the chorus --- the song is kept interesting without having to stress its point. The focus is still exactly where it should be --- on her voice, her melody, her nagging insecurity.

Expect a bunch of "this is too safe, too bland, too normal" criticisms of a great songwriter sedated and compromised (cries of Sarah McLachlan ring from blogland, though they're wrong, of course). But she isn't changing her actual songwriting aesthetic much for this record, and certainly not with this song; this isn't a freak Dave Fridmann remake, it's a series of light melodic ornaments (thanks, Greenwald), each softly accentuating everything that Cat Power's always been about: melancholy, repetition, instrumental restraint, emotional excess. So, everything we've come to love about Chan, just... better.

Shame about that album cover, though.

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