The facts should speak for themselves right? Jewel Kilcher has sold over 23 million albums worldwide. That's not counting this, the Alaskan's fourth album, which has already shifted over a million copies in the US, debuting at Number Nine on the Billboard chart last November.
So, now we are expected to fall head-over-heels for the first offering in three years from the singer/songwriter, poet and actress, oft hailed as the new Joni Mitchell. Sadly, however, this shiny collection of pop, folk, blues, country and rock is mostly about as emotionally engaging as watching Mr Spock watch paint dry... in the dark.
That's not to say that 'This Way' is unbearably dire. Jewel's tales of modern day small town America with "mothers on the stoop" and "boys in souped up coupes", of love, lust and other all-consuming human questions, are all cleverly worded. Indeed, when she lets herself go, her vocals can be entertaining in a Sheryl Crow-meets-Chrissie Hynde kind of way.
It's just that the recording is buffed and polished to within an inch of its life (Hyacinth Bucket's Pledge and duster skills couldn't have done better), while the largely less than memorable tunes breeze by without the least sense of event.
There are faint glimmers of hope. The gently reflective, quietly bitter 'Jesus Loves You', the Stonesy riffed trailer park loneliness of 'Everybody Needs Someone Sometime', the Eastern flavoured 'Serve The Ego' -"Who says a woman cannot serve?"- and dark, country-tinged attack on the US 'The New Wild West' are all fine tunes.
But it's the ballsy blues of 'Love Me, Just Leave Me Alone' -rough edged and rootsy with great gutsy vocals- and the two bonus live tracks - 'Grey Matter' and 'Sometimes It Be That Way' - which reveal the more vital, exciting, compelling performer beneath all the gloss and overdone production.
