Better Broken

About

Sarah McLachlan’s first album of originals in 11 years fortuitously arrives in the same month as the premiere of <i>Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery</i>, a documentary that celebrates the trailblazing legacy of her all-women festival. And in many respects, <i>Better Broken</i> serves the same function in 2025 as Lilith Fair did in the ’90s, by providing a safe space for fans to gather and wallow in all the feels. With boygenius producer Tony Berg behind the boards, <i>Better Broken</i> sees McLachlan effortlessly integrate herself into a contemporary singer-songwriter landscape she helped create, with the title track reintroducing us to the folk-schooled storytelling, trip-hoppy textures, and hair-raising vocal turns that made her an adult-alternative icon. As ever, McLachlan masterfully distills relationships to the most intimate details (“I want to feel the shiver/Your fingers writing poetry on my skin,” she sings on the dustbowl devotional “Long Road Home”), while delving into their messy aftermaths with unflinching resolve: The post-breakup piano ballad “Wilderness” just might be the most elegant “fuck you” to an ex ever written. But while its songs take the form of deeply personal heart-to-heart conversations, <i>Better Broken</i> is very much tuned into the socio-political tumult weighing on all our lives—the tender piano serenade “Only Human” is the musical equivalent of a shoulder to cry on, with McLachlan offering words of encouragement to beaten-down souls like the world’s most sympathetic life coach. And if McLachlan is several decades removed from her Lilith Fair mobilization efforts, uplifting self-empowerment anthems like “One in a Long Line” and “Rise” show the festival’s feminist fuse still burns brightly inside her.

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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