While Beautiful Distraction established Marianne’s credentials as a strong, emotionally raw and honest songwriter, Cathartic takes a turn from her generally sunny disposition. Inspired by the pain and heartache of a life changing, faith shaking relationship the new album embodies a release from strong emotions derived from a love lost.
The album takes the listener through a mix of up-tempo, pick-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps songs to tunes of hatred and angst to the more poetic and thoughtful ballads coalesced in a shaky bipolar collection that was intended to chronicle Marianne’s passage through her painstaking ordeal. It’s definitely a good ‘break-up’ album but is something anyone can relate to in times of self doubt.
“I saw an ugly side of the world. I don’t know if that crisis measures up to some of the ones that others have been through, but I’ll never be quite the same. People think the title song is a metaphor about tearing out and burning a page from my diary, but I actually did that. It was a chapter I really wanted to forget…if younger listeners don’t know what the word cathartic means, they will after they listen to that song and the whole album.”
It seems that Marianne took a lesson from Aristotle that: tragedy can, at times, act as a slap in the face from reality and in time truly bring people back to a virtuous and happy mean. After letting it all out in Cathartic, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear Marianne Keith back to her old self, playing spirited and heartwarming music.
You can hear Marianne live every Thursday at the Piano Bar in Hollywood performing her songs from Cathartic and Beautiful Distraction.
