Carolyn Mark has a smart mouth. On Nothing Is Free, her fourth album, the Canadian singer-songwriter cracks jokes at inappropriate moments, undercutting the gravity of the songs' dire situations with ill-timed levity. If you go by her songs, which don't have punchlines so much as wincing observations, this tendency usually turns out self-destructive, even if it conveys a certain hard-won wisdom. On stand-out "Pictures at 5", she can't help but do some unexpected reconnaissance on the woman taking her place: "I gotta confess I was strangely impressed/ I thought 'mmm...lace panties' when I looked up her dress." Elsewhere, she turns the malicious blacklist question "Are you now or have you ever been..." into an open-ended country chorus, lovely and even touching. Alt-country by default, Mark sings with a warm, subtle twang but differentiates herself from similar singers like Paula Frazer and frequent collaborator Neko Case with her cutting sense of humor, which on Nothing Is Free sounds like a defense mechanism against life's disappointments-- a smile hiding a profound frown. It doesn't keep her from sounding bitter, but at least makes her bitterness entertaining.
Musically, Nothing Is Free is folksily stripped down, with just a few stringed instruments accompanying Mark's steely vocals. The spare arrangements corral guitar, upright bass, mandolin, and violin-- and, okay, a clarinet, the only non-stringed instrument-- and her small band proves surprisingly versatile as it gives Mark's songs a casual, almost impulsive feel, as if the singer has just thought of the perfect comeback hours after the confrontation. Only the closer "Destination: You" breaks this rootsy formula, translating this same mood via-- no kidding-- dark synths, trip-hop beats, and artsily reverbed vocals. The song is a huge risk, and not half bad, but it fades out too early, ending just as the live drums come in and the music starts gets really interesting.
Even so, the songs on Nothing Is Free, even the hoedown "Get Along", are like bruises nursed for days, plumbing deep disillusionment with adult relationships. On "Honest Woman", Mark observes about the opposite sex: "They want a whore in the kitchen and a wife in the bedroom/ And a saint to live on in their minds." It takes a few seconds to realize she has switched the expected roles, by which times she's winding up the song: "I'll tell you a secret if you pay me back/ Tops in real life are bottoms in the sack." An unlikely sex symbol on what is ostensibly a break-up album, Mark plays the role of the scorned woman with such devilish brio you might think she's enjoying herself.
