Album Review: Ginger Wildheart - "The Pessimist's Companion" (2022 Version)

 

When this album first surfaced in 2018, it was only available for about five minutes prior to the collapse of the Pledgemusic platform which Ginger had so successfully used over the previous decade or so. Happily, it's now been picked up by Little Steven's Wicked Cool label (also home to sometime Ginger collaborator Ryan Hamilton), remixed, expanded and re-released. So while we don't usually review re-releases here at Nite Songs, we felt we could make an exception for this one.

My main thought on listening to The Pessimist's Companion for the first time three and a half years ago was that it was an incredibly downbeat and stark album but somehow the rearranged tracklisting helps things to scan a bit better. Oh don't get me wrong, it's still a brutally honest affair as the opening duo of Why Aye (Oh You) and I Love You So Much I'm Leaving seeing Ginger taking a quite disarmingly frank look at his shortcomings in relationships down the years while hoping that he learns from them next time out. You Will Let Me Down Again, a tale of bad influences creeping back into one's life when you least need them, could be an ode to drinks, drugs or friends who are bad influences and the title track, an ode to Ginger's dog Maggie, is about trying to find something to help you locate the bright spots in the blackness.

Of the five new songs here, No Regrets is a gentle stripped down post-breakup lament, Detachment is a mid-paced ode to trying to escape bad influences (which almost feels like a part two to the aforementioned You Will Let Me Down Again) while I Don't Wanna Work On This Song No More and a cover of John Cooper Clarke's I Wanna Be Yours provide a bit of humour into the serious tone of this album and Stalemate is a faster-paced ode which mixes humour and seriousness well.

The Pessimist's Companion remains quite a tough listen lyrically but, put it down to the tracklist resequencing or the remastering job, it now feels like the overriding message, rather than being one of doom and despair, is of trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel as epitomised by the fact that the album now closes with the beautiful May The Restless Find Peace, which opened the original version and now feels like a message of hope rather than one of warning ("I will not curb my bite/I was dragged into this fight") and balances out the darkness on later songs like Barbed Wire And Roses and There Is A House.

Ginger's unplugged albums (this one and its predecessor Ghost In The Tanglewood) are often where you'll find a lot of his most personal songs but The Pessimist's Companion is incredibly stark even by these standards. But the key is that with this new version it's been given a new lease of life and positivity. Well worth both a listen both for newcomers and a re-listen for those who got it first time out.

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NITE SONGS RATING: 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 (9/10)

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