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IT'S been a long time coming - she says she has been "holed up in the woods" since 1998's Spirit - but the first album from Jewel Kilcher in four years is worth the wait. While there are moments here when the nervy singer-songwriter's lyrics will make you want to cringe, and while the album comes with two live acoustic "bonus" tracks that are simply a waste of space, there are some exceptional songs on This Way, especially the ones that talk about love. Songs such as the opening track, Standing Still, on which she fears that love is destined to pass her by, or the yearning, submissive 8reak Me, or the exquisite This Way, on which she sings with great purity and clarity of her desire to capture and keep a moment of perfection for ever.
Her attempts at social commentary are less successful: Serve the Ego is just plain clumsy and on the
disastrous The New Wild West she gives full rein to the rambling, kooky side of her personality. But there are also moments of lyrical panache: "He looked like a potato shoved into jeans." The melodies are mostly
memorable, the arrangements are warm, robust, rocky and rhythmic (imagine Sheryl Crow but with better songs and an infinitely superior voice), while her voice is never less than arresting and shows a hitherto hidden level of
technical virtuosity. On Till We Run Out of Ground (sic), she does an impressive celtic-style trill that Dolores Whatsername of the Cranberries would die for. Whatever Jewel was up to in those woods, it worked.
David Cheal
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