MARTHA WAINWRIGHT - Martha Wainwright

It's always the same old story: when you're the child of famous parents, in some cases you're talented, but you manage to gain initial major visibility above all thanks to the surname you carry; without that name, the path would have been more difficult and treacherous.

Not that the surname Wainwright is so illustrious, in the sense that it remains a niche name, known especially to devotees of certain sounds, but it helps, and no effort is made to keep it hidden.

To cut a long story short: Miss Martha's mom and dad are two folk music legends, her brother is Rufus, the most famous member of the family, and she grew up in an environment where every circumstance did nothing but bring her closer to a big debut.

Miss Wainwright, born in New York and raised in Canada, class of 1976, after a couple of EPs that had made many people's ears perk up, thus makes her first appearance on a full-length album, and she does so with a decent record that leaves us with the following doubt: "Would we ever have listened to this without that surname clearly visible before our eyes?"

And yet the opening promises well, the first tracks are lovely: "Far Away" and "Gpt" hint at a debut with all the trimmings, "Factory", already heard in a slightly different version on her first self-titled EP, proves equal to the occasion, then, as the tracks go on, the record drags itself ever more wearily towards its conclusion.

The album is mainly conceived for voice and acoustic guitar, with a few slightly over-the-top peaks, and consists of sixteen pop-folk ballads seasoned by a voice that skilfully wins you over, particularly in the more delicate moments.

Martha often tries to make up for a lack of ideas precisely through her undisputed vocal abilities, which allows her to bring to life some particularly successful and satisfying episodes ("Ball And Chain" would make a perfect FM single).

Credit is due for proving herself a capable songwriter (she writes the entire album with the sole exception of "Whiter Must I Wander") and a versatile singer: witness the closing "Dis, Quand Reviendras Tu?", where Martha comes across as an excellent interpreter of the most traditional chanson française.

The formal elegance and crystalline class of "When The Day Is Short" alternates with the overly whiny moments of "Bloody Motherfucking Asshole" (a couple of brazenly spoken words aren't enough to make a great song), "Who Was I Kidding" and "Baby", or tracks too lacking in bite, as in the case of "These Flowers" and "This Life".

Mom Kate appears on a couple of tracks and brother Rufus lends a hand, stepping in for the duet "Bring Back My Heart" and on backing vocals on "The Maker", but, beyond the pleasantness of the listen, from a Wainwright we would have expected a touch more courage, we would have hoped to discover a female Jeff Buckley or Elliott Smith, almost as if to make up for their untimely deaths, and instead once again our hopes prove in vain, leaving a void only partially filled by a handful of songs we'll enjoy listening to before diving back into our endless search.

For the completist obsessives out there, worth noting that Martha performed a swing number on the soundtrack of Martin Scorsese's film "The Aviator" ("I'll Be Seeing You"), in which she also appeared in a brief cameo, and she also lent her voice to the lively "Star Crossed Lovers", a track performed with Propellerheads featured on the compilation "Red Hot + Indigo".

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

30/04/2026