Before The Poison

\"With 2005\'s *Before the Poison*, Marianne Faithfull continues to find new collaborators who fit perfectly with her foreboding sense of pop. This time out, it\'s PJ Harvey, Nick Cave, and Aimee Mann producer Jon Brion who help Faithfull navigate her way through a dark night of beautiful losing. She has an unmistakable voice, one that immediately adds an extra dose of gravitas to anything she contemplates. Where her previous albums with producer Hal Willner (1987\'s *Strange Weather*) and film scorer Angelo Badalamenti (1995\'s *A Secret Life*) couched Faithfull in consistently quiet, often languid settings to allow her to indulge in her most seductive purrs, *Poison* adds an occasional level of abrasion with the Harvey-engineered \"\"My Friends Have,\"\" where scruffy guitar chords do righteous battle and the Hal Willner-enhanced \"\"Desperanto\"\" where things turn quite tribal. Nick Cave resettles things with piano and Warren Ellis\' violin for the cinematically sweeping and uplifting beauty of \"\"Crazy Love.\"\" The mood is extended with an inspired pairing with Blur\'s Damon Albarn for the acoustic guitar, piano, and strings of \"\"Last Song.\"\" \"

The legendary singer's new set of grim, gothic songs features collaborations with PJ Harvey, Nick Cave, Jon Brion, and Blur frontman Damon Albarn, among others.

Each time Marianne Faithfull issues a recording, fans and pundits hold their breaths waiting for another outing as iconoclastic as Broken English.

Before The Poison is a markedly personal record, earmarking another chapter in Faithfull’s 40-year career.

I have a theory that Marianne Faithfull died in the mid-'70s, not an unlikely scenario all things considered, and that her albums since have been beacons...