Gretchen Peters underscores the brilliance of 2007's Burnt Toast & Offerings with Hello Cruel World as if it were a companion. Here, Peters catalogs the travails, wounds, and perils of living and loving in the 21st century; with equanimity, she examines humanity as an extraordinary event, a spiritual opportunity via the tragedies in our personal relationships, our economic disasters, our stupid ideologies, and our brief moments of triumph and celebration. Peters' poetic backbone celebrates the dignity in her protagonists as they struggle and thrive. Hello Cruel World's large spiritual truths are revealed in the only way they matter: small, intimate experiences. This album comes to the listener as a gift wrapped in tattered paper, making it all the more precious to receive. ~ Thom Jurek|
Rovi