Kasey Chambers
Wayward Angel
Album · Country · 2004
After the runaway success of 2001’s Barricades & Brickwalls, Kasey Chambers gave birth to her first child. This would profoundly shape the mood and themes of 2004’s Wayward Angel. It drifts along with the energy of a new parent’s introspection, altogether slow and considered. The title track sees Chambers exploring her fears as a young mother, while the piano ballad “Paper Aeroplane” is about an older man whose wife passed away from cancer. Chambers was not acquainted with him; she was simply moved by his story after seeing it one night on television.
The album, Chambers’ third, is another family affair; her older brother, Nash, had produced her first two records and appears again here to add his signature dusty shine, and the odd vocal harmony, to Wayward Angel’s 14 tracks. What was more unusual for Chambers was inviting someone else—her partner at the time, actor Cori Hopper—to co-write her songs. The three tracks they penned together—“More Than Ordinary”, “Follow You Home” and “Guilty As Sin”—are where Chambers mentally hires a babysitter, lets her hair down and revisits the jaunty pace of her debut.