Servant of Love

Patty Griffin has always been an artist fearlessly, eagerly willing to follow her muse wherever it may take her, and few artists can bare their souls in the recording studio with such compelling results. For her ninth studio album, 2015's Servant of Love, Griffin has given herself more creative freedom than ever before, as it's the first release from PGM Recordings, her own independent label. While Servant of Love doesn't sound like an album she couldn't have made for one of her former sponsors, it is a bravely eclectic, often enigmatic work that doesn't announce all its attentions at first glance, but allows Griffin to use her lyrics and voice to communicate a soulful style that's as much about tone as the literal message of the verses. As the title suggests, Servant of Love is, for the most part, a collection of songs about love, but these are not love songs per se. Instead, these tunes ponder the mysteries of attraction (the title song), the downsides of failing relationships ("Hurt