There are few ideas more fraught with potential failure than an artist deciding to re-record one of their albums. If you did it right the first time, there's absolutely no need to do it again, and if the first go-round was a disaster, there's no guarantee that the songs will register more clearly the second time around.
Lydia Loveless absolutely got it right with her third full-length album, 2014's
Somewhere Else, a creative breakthrough where she first truly lived up to the awesome potential of her earliest recordings. Ten years down the line from that triumph,
Loveless has chosen to take another look at that album's ten songs with 2024's
Something Else, where she reimagined the arrangements, stripping away the full band and approaching them with just her own acoustic piano for accompaniment. The effect is just different enough from the original recordings that it feels less like a re-make than a re-imagining; in some ways, the performances sound like they could have been the demos
Loveless cut before going into the studio for
Somewhere Else, but the vocals sound like the work of someone who has had plenty of time to learn these lyrics and fully understand their emotional textures. As good as
Loveless's vocals sounded on
Somewhere Else, they're even better on
Something Else, and this is a magnificent showcase for her talents as a singer. That said, her piano work is fine and the intimacy of these spare interpretations brings something to the music that wasn't audible on the originals, but ultimately, the band gave these great songs a more emotionally complex impact that's missing from this album. The bottom line is,
Something Else isn't as good as
Somewhere Else, but it's unfair to say it's inferior. Here,
Loveless wants us to take another look at these songs, and what she shows us is strong and effecting. From an artist who has always been utterly unafraid to bear her soul, this LP offers an even deeper insight into her heart and mind, and it's a privilege to get such a powerful second look at this work. ~ Mark Deming
