Rifles & rosary beads

"With Rifles & Rosary Beads, Mary Gauthier has offered a bridge between soldiers who sacrificed more than they'd offered and civilians who often do their best to ignore the wounds we've allowed. The album brings suffering, both visible and the kind that is a harder to see, to the forefront. What we do with the human cost of war - ignore, medicate, demonize - reflects on the character of the nation itself. Rifles & Rosary Beads offers not only a document of atrocity and neglect, but a chance for redemption and healing".

Read review

"From start to finish, Rifles & Rosary Beads is a beautiful and harrowing experience telling important stories that need to be heard and pointing to still more others coming from the ongoing work being done through SongwritingWith:Soldiers ... Shut off the social media for an hour, and pay attention to these stories. The co-writers of these poignant and powerful songs have fought in defense of our collective freedom of speech. We should honor them by listening to their stories".

Read review

"Rifles and Rosary Beads is unlike any other record. It edifies and empathizes with the experiences of its participants in delivering brutal yet tender truths; it confronts listeners to embrace without judgment the struggle of war survivors, while experientially relating the extended fact that over 7,400 veterans commit suicide each year. Gauthier and her collaborators look into the gaping maw of war, its trauma, isolation, rage, and loneliness, to reveal the human faces and hearts of its witnesses. Popular music can do no more than this".

Read review