★★★★★
It's usually a sign of desperation when an artist re-records his old songs. An admission that the muse has dried up, the generally unsuccessful attempt to generate fast cash by spit-polishing the hits in hope of an unlikely comeback also seems somewhat depressing. Thankfully Loudon Wainwright lll is too artistically sincere to take the easy way out on these 13 covers of his tunes, all originally recorded before 1974...
- www.americansongwriter.com
2013-04-25
★★★★★
Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen have both enjoyed latter-day critical resurgences not just because their recent work is in top form, but because at their age they are forced to confront death, and have done so with grace and aurally-enhanced creakiness (and in Dylan's case, Daniel Lanois). But can a virtual stand-up comedian reach the same echelons on a "death album"? Yes...
- www.americansongwriter.com
2013-04-25
★★★★★
He may be too busy or too lazy, but Wainwright has opted not to write an autobiography, as many of his singer-contemporaries of a certain age appear to be doing. Instead, he tells us in the promotional blurb to his new album, he's attempted to give us a potted version of his life story in a single three-and-a-half minute song...
- recordcollectormag.com
2013-04-02
★★★★★
Like lots of aging baby boomers, Loudon Wainwright III has spent on the planet more years than his father. Older Than My Old Man Now addresses that issue head on, as well as other related concerns. The 15 original tracks address aging, changing family relationships, and death, in sincere and heartfelt ways that make one consider his or her own mortality. Some are also strange and silly...
- www.popmatters.com
2012-05-10
★★★★★
There's nothing Loudon Wainwright likes more than mixing gloom with humour - and the realisation he has now lived for longer than his father is the perfect excuse for a concept album about death. There are 14 new songs here, along with an exquisite ballad he wrote with Kate McGarrigle back in the 70s, all dealing with "death'n'decay". And it works, thanks to his bleak wit, his ability to match thoughtful lyrics against varied, mostly blues-based settings, and help from special guests...
- www.guardian.co.uk
2012-04-26
★★★★★
Loudon Wainwright Jr., a noted columnist and editor for Life Magazine, died in 1988, just four days shy of his 66th birthday. His son, Loudon Wainwright III, was 42 that year, already an established folk singer-songwriter but not yet the cult actor with impeccable timing. He had already made his father a grandfather, although in the late 1980s no one knew that Rufus, Martha and Lucy would perpetuate the Wainwright name for another generation...
- www.pastemagazine.com
2012-04-23
★★★★★
It's a good thing Loudon Wainwright's Older Than My Old Man Now is so funny, because otherwise it would be unbearably sad. Older Than My Old Man Now is a concept album about death and decay that posits the inexorable march of time and the inevitable embrace of the grave as two-thirds raucous comedy and one-third tragedy. It's an album about endings: of sex, of life, of hope, of families, and most mercifully, old grudges and grievances so powerful they can outlast life if given a chance...
- www.avclub.com
2012-04-19
★★★★★
With his most famous familial protégé Rufus scheduled to release his latest opus next week, musical senior statesman Loudon Wainwright III treats listeners to a wise and often wonderful record that proves there is life in the 'old man' yet...
- music.thedigitalfix.com
2012-04-16
★★★★★
Strange as it may seem to the modern music fan, but there was a time when there was only one warbling Wainwright. Long before Rufus Wainwright composed operas and Martha Wainwright strummed her guitar, there was their father, Loudon Wainwright III with album after album of autobiographical songs that were often rather too honest. Older Than My Old Man Now is Wainwright's 21st studio album, and feels very like a swansong...
- www.musicomh.com
2012-04-12
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