Marianne Faithfull ‘Negative Capability’

Marianne Faithfull has had an extraordinary progression, from teen idol in the early ’60s to Mick Jagger’s paramour as that decade began swinging to her decades-long midnight of the soul as a junkie to her triumphant resurrection as a serious artist — rich with life experience — as she enters her seventh decade of being. On her 21st studio album, Negative Capability, the poetess examines her back pages with fresh takes on the Stones’ “As Tears Go By,” rendered all the more moving by her remorseful, whisky-voiced croak and the passage of time, and Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.” “They Come at Night” is a harrowing reflection on the rise of fanatical terrorism in Europe. However, “The Gypsy Faerie Queen” — a lovely duet with Nick Cave — is the album’s sublime highlight, invoking images of William Shakespeare’s Titania from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.