Patti Smith, Peace And Noise (Arista) 9+
When Patti Smith made her first comeback with 1988's awful Dream of Life, I thought she had completely lost her muse, not to mention her marbles. There already was a hint of that on Wave's completely embarrassing title track. For her second comeback, 1996's Gone Again, Smith deals with the triple tragedy of losing her husband, brother and close friend Robert Mapplethrope. Having suffered through the mewling, tuneless meanderings of Lou Reed's Songs For Drella and Magic And Loss which also deal with death, I avoided it. It wasn't until Peace And Noise did I realize that the 1996 was Patti Smith's true second coming. Smith was a poet first, and the lyrics here are the most gripping she's come up with since her first two classic albums, Horses and Radio Ethiopia. This album is better than Easter, her third album from 1978. After wrapping up some elegiac and somber business left over from the previous album, explores some fresh themes that deal with the struggle between domestic issues of raising children, and finding her place in the world as a rebellious, but aging artist. She pays tribute to her recently deceased colleagues Allen Ginsberg ("Spell") and William Burroughs ("Dead City"). And throughout, her singing sounds great! It's nice to hear that Patti Smith can still do Patti Smith better than P.J. Harvey.
