Review of Spirit
This review of Spirit is from this week's (Nov 11-18) Time Out,
London edition.
Jewel
'Spirit' Atlantic
So, the ice maiden returneth - she who looks like a babe and sings
like an angel. A ready template for this follow-up to her
ten-million-selling debut would surely have been to indulge in a
big, expansive production, drenching songs of fashionable angst and
empty bombast in slickly smug saccharine soul. But never
underestimate Jewel Kilcher. This is an acoustically-based work of
limpid beauty and subtle intensity. It is also significantly better,
and more mature, than its bold if uneven predecessor. The album
opens with a simply strummed acoustic guitar and tender, intimate
vocal that builds slowly to a measured but mighty crescendo. 'We
must demand more, not from each other, but more from ourselves,' she
sings, articulating a typical and telling Jewel philosophy.
This is beautiful music, crafted for the mainstream, acceptable to
all and yet shot through with the kind of passion, urgency, flair
and vitality so utterly lacking in Dion, Carey, Morrissette and
Crow. Certainly, Jewel has a way with a song, a hook and a melody,
and the production, too, is perfect: lush, deft, sensitively
understated and never overblown. Most of all, though, her voice is
superb: soft, soaring, effortless and majestic. Lauryn Hill may
have melded the year's finest work of classic tradition and
contemporary soul, but this too, though less hip, is a work of
simple and true classic song. Offering nothing new but sounding
like no one else, 'Spirit' is a significant confirmation of a major
talent.
Ross Fortune
Transcription by Chris Groves
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