One of the most important figures of the musical revolution of the late ‘70s, Patti Smith later went into a self-imposed exile, returning to form after nearly a decade with 1996’s GONE AGAIN. On PEACE AND NOISE, she proves that the comeback was no fluke. While themes of death and loss pervade, Smith tries to make sense of it all.

On “1959” she take a nostalgic look at a turning point in our cultural history, continuing the lesson with “Spell,” an excerpt from Ginsberg’s Howl read over a bed of acoustic guitars and strings. On “Dead City,” Smith mourns the economic death of Detroit, working a proletarian fury worthy of her late husband Fred’s Detroit proto-punk band MC5. This sentiment is furthered on “Blue Poles,” a powerful ballad of a family losing hope in the Dust Bowl. Where GONE AGAIN served as the document of one woman’s loss, PEACE AND NOISE finds the godmother of punk taking a parental view; looking at the world her children (both biological and spiritual) have inherited, and she’s flying the flag of discontent for a whole new generation.