Album Review: The Story of Michael and Tanya by The War and Treaty
The married duo splits each confession between two voices, then arms its love songs with scripture. Their fifth album is their most assured set of songs.
With the duo’s fifth studio album, there’s Whoopi Goldberg. She strolls to the mic as an icon would, introduces a couple that the world couldn’t figure out at first, then outlines every contradiction stuffed inside fifteen years of marriage and tells the room they’re finally going to get to hear it all. Everything that follows takes her at her word. Michael and Tanya Trotter present every pleading, every prayer to be heard, and every moment’s argument, designed for the world rather than the pillows under their heads. Lights up and the house is full, and they work their marriage the way other singers work a testimony.
Michael’s up first on “Shouldn’t Have,” listing what he didn’t ought to’ve been doing, his long disappearances, the late nights, the other woman he chose for dinner, and finally, “I crossed the line/I did it this time/How could I lose control.” Tanya takes the other position, and the chorus reconfigures to reflect a shared pronoun: “You crossed the line/You did it this time.” The conversation continues, the identical chorus acting in one minute as a confession, the next as an indictment, until both partners have voiced their side and nobody’s right. On “Don’t Say Goodbye,” the requests become more balanced between the two, both simply asking that they stay “with a promise not to lose what we found.” Until a specific moment from within another bedroom comes in the form of a concrete image: “I lay down in your bed, but you won’t wake up in mine.”
On “You Can’t Hurt Me Anymore,” Tanya explains that she once welcomed a particular person into her heart like he was a welcome visitor to take a seat at the kitchen table. Then the chorus, featuring that prayer for strength: “I took back all my pride/I got Jesus on my side/And an army full of angels at my door.” To defend against one person in particular, divine intervention is enlisted in full force. (There’s a credit to Babyface here, along with Jeff Gitelman.) On “Holy Ghost Fire,” Michael moves from the role of rescuer to avenger, as he addresses a woman he “wanna send” to the fire with a specific warning to avoid the usual help. “You don’t need Grandmama’s prayer warriors,” he rasps into the microphone, “You need a killer who’s been there before.” In the end, the camera finds him guarding over her with a gun in his hand. It’s still written language for prayer, though: “Strapped up mama tell me when/You ain’t gotta feel sorry for him/He had it coming.”
Whiskey pours thick and slow into “Lay This Bottle Down,” a Michael solo sung from the perspective of a drinker talking to his own reflection in the glass. “I see my face in the bottle’s glare/Haunted by memories just hangin’ there,” he laments, then yields to his demons: “Each pour’s a promise with each sip I try/I tell myself it’s the last time/But the pain it calls, and I give in.” The promise breaks again with each chorus, and the bridge offers no simple redemption: “Faith keeps me going/But life’s still tough.” On the more optimistic “Don’t Give Up Now,” it’s Tanya and other voices pushing against a person on the edge, an “us” of friends determined to carry their loved one to safety. It’s the most straightforward writing, the power derived from the pure plea itself in lieu of the scene or situation found on other tracks.
Fifteen years of matrimony is reduced to a night on the town in “Litty.” “You’re my wine/I’m your gin,” Tanya croons, quantifying the relationship by appetite, and Michael responds, “Drinking you in/Got me intoxicated/I’m loving this hangover.” They push the pedal down hard, driving past every excuse to slow things up: “Foot on the gas. no brakes/This is what keeps heartaches away.” Carrying that confident vibe into “High Heels,” Tanya’s outfit and performance are enough to be crowned queen of the room, and Michael is happy to take on the role of the loyal soldier: “Baby Mama with no drama that’s how she became my wife/I’ve signed up for her army/I’m a soldier for life.”
A woman skips out on lunch to surprise her husband at the office and walks in on him in a compromising situation. In “Darlene and Gene,” Tanya’s tone and persona switch up for a honky-tonk revenge fantasy that’s sung completely in character. The giddy murder plot unfolds with “I’ll gladly go to jail for shooting Darlene and Gene.” In a twist worthy of a B-movie script, Darlene is also her former best friend; they were once so close they dressed, smelled, and even talked alike. The payback theme becomes more communal in “Reclaim All of Your Time,” where Tanya teams with Valerie June and Wynonna to steer a forlorn woman towards liberation, advising her to “Send that baby back home to his Mama.” The advice graduates from a glass of wine to a complete getaway plan, complete with a pawned wedding ring.
Great (★★★★☆)
Favorite Track(s): “Shouldn’t Have,” “Darlene and Gene,” “Holy Ghost Fire”