It's a pretty sorry state of affairs when the greatest praise you can muster for an entire album is "hey, nice banjo". Nelly Furtado's second album of only-very-slightly-left-of-middle shopping centre pop has a lofty purpose: to bring a folkish, vaguely progressive edge to the music that tinkles in the background while you try on a new pair of jeans. But this album is nowhere near as imaginative or as interesting as its maker thinks it is.
In many ways, it's typical second album syndrome: a desire to be seen as a serious artist coupled with the lyrical baggage that comes with having had a modicum of success. We've been here before with Natalie Imbruglia, of course, who thought that stringing together reams of words without taking breath for 'That Day' would somehow convey the confusion and paranoia that comes with selling records and having some cash in your bank account for once. It didn't work then and it doesn't work now.
In theory, there are some decent ideas in here. Furtado rails against a media that seeks to airbrush out ethnicity on 'Powerless (Say What You Want)'; crafts a feminist anthem from tension and frustration on 'Explode'; and tackles immigration on 'Fresh Off The Boat' (alas, the sum of her insight is contained in the title). But the songs are delivered with such plodding joylessness that you struggle to maintain your interest. It's all a lifetime away from the naïcharm of 'Like A Bird'.
You wait in vain for a truly affecting moment but it never comes. There's something about Furtado's voice and her painfully self-centred ho-hum lyrics that sucks the oxygen from the whole exercise, even when the musical backing threatens moments of quiet beauty. 'Folklore' is at its best when she sings in Portuguese, celebrating a supremely Latin lust for life in 'Forca' and conjuring a sense of solidarity in 'Fresh Off The Boat'. Apart from that this album feels bereft, irrelevant.
Still: hey, nice banjo.
