A gem, plain and simple.
Jewel sparkles with spirit.
There are moments when listening to 'Spirit', the follow-up to Jewel's ten million-selling debut, 'Pieces of you', that you realise where everyone else has been going wrong.
Recent albums by Alanis Morrisette, Tori Amos, Maddona and even Joni Mitchell have made heavy work of the vogue for turning self-analysis into song. But the 24-year-old Alaskan star converts her most personal feelings into words and music of much greater emotional resonance than her singer-songwriter confrères simply by having the good sense to keep her material focused on the basics. 'What's simple is true' - a pretty, folk-based tune with a lyric that speaks in a universal language - could well be the album's manifesto.
There is, too, the engaging sense of an artist who is prepared to seek the solutions to the worries of her world instead of merely cataloguing them.The religious undercurrents of songs such as 'Hands', 'Innocence maintained' and 'Life uncommon' will not be to everyone's liking. "To be forgiven we must first believe in sin," she sternly notes. But her constant cry of optimism in the face of adversity is a welcome antidote to the spiritual malaise that nowadays seems to be the norm.
Quite apart from the purity and depth of Jewel's vision, though, 'Spirit' is about the pleasure of hearing an unadorned, bell-like voice in the service of good songs.
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