Moon Pix makes me want to get rid of all my other CDs. Not necessarily because they're worse, but because I may never need to listen to anything else. It's that good, really. Cat Power is Chan (sounds like Sean) Marshall, and vice versa. She has always had different musicians backing her up on tour and on previous albums, but she is the constant. Cat Power has played in our town twice, once with a band (that included Steve Shelley from Sonic Youth) and once by herself. I went the second time, and it was one of the strangest performances I have ever seen. This was two summers ago, when What Would the Community Think, her last album, was one with my stereo. I went expecting to hear the songs that I loved. Instead I got Chan Marshall alone on stage with her guitar, struggling and not hiding it very well. She played one long song, in which she included small parts of album songs in a mostly rambling thirty-minute thing. The audience was just sitting on the floor (back when you could do that at Tokyo Rose), looking up at her. I think most of us were pretty confused. It was painful to watch and I assumed she was completely wasted. I was more than disappointed, I was pissed.

Now I can't believe I was ever mad. On Moon Pix, Chan Marshall's voice ranges from little girl vulnerable to a loudness that is less than screaming and even more powerful. The album was recorded in Australia, with members from the instrumental group The Dirty Three accompanying Marshall's guitar and piano. The opening track, "American Flag," recycles the beat from an old-school Beastie Boys song and features the damn catchy "shoop shoop-ay doop / shoop-ay doop." "Metal Heart" is the epic song of the album. Listening to it is cathartic, and the lyrics will lodge themselves in your brain: "I once was lost, but now I'm found / Was blind, but now I see you / How selfish of you / To believe in the meaning of all the bad dreams." Track seven, "Moonshiner," is listed in the liner notes as "Traditional, inspired by The Bob Dylan." Marshall sings, with a twang in her voice, "I've been a moonshiner for 17 long years / I spent all my money on whiskey and beer." Later in the song she praises "handsome men," which is cool because it is analogous to Dylan singing about beautiful women. Another favorite of mine is "Cross Bones Style," one of the two almost danceable tracks on the album and also one of the most disturbing: "Oh come, child, in a cross bones style / Oh come, child, come and rescue me / 'Cause you have seen some unbelievable things."