Good news! In America, it's still possible to sell bucket loads of
records without being commercial.
Jewel
Spirit
ATLANTIC 7567-82950-2
Standout Tracks: Kiss The Flame, Jupiter, Do You.
SOMEWHERE AROUND the middle of 1997, long years of
beyond-the-call-of-duty touring finally paid off for wholesome,
crooked-toothed Swiss-American folkie Jewel Kilcher. Her low key,
long-before-released debut album Pieces Of You had turned her -
almost imperceptibly - into a major star in her homeland.
Between then and the release of this inevitably high-profile
follow-up, the young Alaskan has found the time and inspiration
to publish a best-selling book of poetry. A Night Without Armor, and,
by all accounts, penned enough new songs for three or four more
records. She has also enlisted the keyboard-playing and
knob-twiddling skills of veteran pop producer and long-time Madonna
collaborator Patrick Leonard to help turn a sound that was born to
play coffee shop gigs into something capable of withstanding the
inevitable round of stadium concerts.
The good news for the legions of word-of-mouth fans who bought album
one is that Leonard has made no attempt to turn his New Age folk
babe into a poptastic material girl. Spirit is still very
recognisably a Jewel record as her clear, tender and playfully
acrobatic vocal remains firmly to the fore over a series of
obliquely melodic, deftly woven and densely wordy tunes.
The small band of session musicians enlisted to flesh out Jewel's
strongly acoustic style remain, for the most part, modestly in the
background and only occasionally does an over-fancy piece of
fretwork or some OTT bass and percussion disturb the quietly
established equilibrium.
The songs themselves also cover familar Jewel territory, concerning
themselves by and large with strongly personal but thoroughly
American explorations of love, loneliness and the need for us all to
help each other out more. The repeated images of love as a bolt of
lightning, of empty rooms and her strange obsession with her own
hands, which surface amid the sometimes poetic pschyobabble could
become a little tedious for listeners whose appreciation doesn't
come shrinkwrapped, but songs such as the flirty, funny Jupiter and
the dark but spunky Do You can't help but be easily likeable.
Thus far, it seems, success hasn't compromised Jewel: her kooky-cool
sound can still charm the pants off you one moment and make you
feel like chundering on its sickly-sweet sincerity the next.
Dave Roberts 3/5
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