Adrianne Lenker – Sadness As a Gift Review

Onward Adrianne Lenker goes with another bold step in their solo career. Sadness as a Gift strikes as a pure and mature sense of the grieving process. We are to appreciate it because it signals the end of days we will appreciate. Lenker aims for the heart once more, with ease, after the overwhelming excellence of previous single Ruined. It all forms the base of Bright Future, this hopeful break from a past where the chapters are fully written. The book is closed and Lenker does well to accept moving on as the only course of action – where it takes them is yet to be found. Along the way come these wonderful pockets of joy for grief and the heartbreak found in love. All of it winds together so comfortably and feels like a consistent, flurrying punch to the gut. As it should be. 

Lenker has come a long way from her early days of country pop, refining their voice to the contemporary tones of Americana fever. There is the immediate conversation swirling of sadness as a sign of life. Mellow strings and the light fiddle work in this opener provide a lush instrumental bed as Lenker sets out to find hope in the horror. It is a gift after all. Charming country swing is in full effect. Sadness as a Gift recounts the end of a love which initially had no ending. That is the heartbreak but the gift comes clear as the experience before the finality. Lenker makes sure this message comes across with a brutal, gut-wrenching clarity with some slick use of stripped-back country essentials.  

Light flutters of acoustics lay down the foundations for the big questions which lead to the unravelling. Nothing specific, all inferred and a brutal shot in the dark soon follows. There is an honesty within Sadness as a Gift which lends itself to the usual charms Lenker has charted so far with these singles. It feels obvious the bright future hinted at in the title is not yet founded or even known, but Lenker does a marvellous job of laying out a convincing optimism. It follows on from the heartbreak of Ruined, the pieces scattered across the floor slowly pieced together by Sadness as a Gift. Lenker has successfully shown the turmoil and devastation in their singles so far – but the crucial follow-up, a second act of redemption and closure often left alone by songwriters – is a refreshing turn.  

Sadness as a Gift is as its title suggests, a true gift which explores not the opportunity which follows the heartbreak but a sense of future offerings. What can follow the devastating blow? It cannot get much worse than this. Lenker knows it and follows this notion, this unwavering trust in something not guaranteed. It lingers as a remarkable turn of form, a wonderful success in identifying and accepting the heartbreak as a normal form of life. It may be a disastrous experience, the consequences of which ripple through and are even nudged as Lenker being at fault, but it is the action to follow that matters in the long run, not the reaction. Lenker analyses this well with Sadness as a Gift and kicks on from there.