Love Will Be Reborn

One thing you have to say for Martha Wainwright -- you never have to wonder what she's thinking. The woman who wrote a song about her own father called "Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole" is blessed with fearless honesty on a level few possess, and if she's less blunt on 2021's Love Will Be Reborn, the emotional roller coaster that informed these songs is audible from front to back. 2012's Come Home to Mama was a beautiful but harrowing album inspired by the death of her mother, the premature birth of her child, and a new marriage that was having more than its share of problems. Love Will Be Reborn feels like a partial follow up, as it was written and recorded in the wake of Wainwright's subsequent divorce, and she's willing to show us her scars if we're brave enough to look. Love Will Be Reborn doesn't wallow in anger or hopelessness, but Wainwright isn't afraid to clearly acknowledge them; the title tune weighs the need to believe that love and emotional healing will come again, though i