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Vest-wearing Alaskan's fourth album of folksy pop, so clean you could eat your dinner off it.
Jewel Kilcher has been charming Americans with her poetic folk-pop and skimpy singlets since her first album, 1995's Pieces Of You. Curmudgeonly old Britain has yet to roll over and is unlikely to do so now, as This Way is an album of tuneful but calculated pop-rock to be admired rather than loved. Recorded in Nashville and full of rootsy stylings, former Stevie N icks co-writer Rick Knowles and producer Dan Huff have still scrubbed everything here to within an inch of its life. The airier, old-style Jewel numbers - Break Me, the title track - will satisfy long-time devotees, but a desire to out-Crow Sheryl Crow (Everybody Needs Someone Sometime) and
snare the Nelly Furtado market (Standing Still) are the driving forces elsewhere. Still, back home it should keep her in singlets for some time yet. (Three stars)
Mark Blake
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