Marianne Faithfull - Easy Come Easy Go

Rating:

* *

It seems Faithfull's peculiar magnetism is as strong as ever. With almost all of her previous three albums of the past decade collaboration-heavy affairs, here she's extended the guest list so much she's emerged with an 18-track double album that includes appearances by Nick Cave, Rufus Wainwright, Keith Richards, Anthony Hegarty, Sean Lennon, Jarvis Cocker, Chan Marshall and Teddy Thompson.

Song-wise, she and producer Hal Wilner- who helmed her 1987 covers-heavy

Strange Weather

- have constructed a very assorted set of songs. The combination of both lists brings a very mixed result.

Faithfull's voice still has plenty of creaky character but it sure isn't a good fit for the likes of Smokey Robinson's

Ooh Baby Baby, Somewhere (A Place for Us)

from

West Side Story

, or Duke Ellington's

Solitude

.

Still, she manages to find another layer of misery in Morrissey's

Dear God Please Help Me

and Merle Haggard's

Sing Me Back Home

.

Possibly would have been better as a single disc, but as it is, this comes on too much like a

Young@Heart

solo album for comfort.

Russell Baillie