Michelle Branch’s Hotel Paper (Gallo), the follow-up to the inspired Spirit Room, is a highly personal, well-crafted take on love. Her message is clear: from a woman’s perspective, it’s very hard to attain perfect love, if there is such a thing.
On the strong single Are You Happy Now? she’s a woman scorned, but not beaten: “I’ve had all that I can take/I’m not about to break”. Empty Handed is about escaping misery; there is lost love on the piano-led One of These Days. Love can be unrealised (on the powerful Breathe with its spirited chorus) or unattainable (the title track). She often sounds wistful, and always brutally honest, resulting in a moody but tender album.
Branch duets with Sheryl Crow on the country-inflected Love Me Like That, and two bonus tracks are included: the funky single Everywhere and The Game of Love, recorded with guitar man Santana.
In a lighter vein comes Jewel Kilcher’s fifth album, 0304 (Gallo), which she also co-produced with Enrique Iglesias and Shakira producer Lester Mendez. She has chosen a lighter and more commercial approach than on her previous efforts, even posing Christina Aguilera-like on the cover.
The music and its delivery is sunny and upbeat, but does not quite work when songs address serious issues: the light, easy delivery of Stand, contrast with the lyrics: “Mothers weep, children sleep/So much violence ends in silence”.
Many of the tracks are too indistinct, such as Run 2 U with its dance beat and Sweet Temptation, but when Jewel darkens the mood and turns up the emotion, like on the atmospheric Haunted and the clever America — a condemnation of her country: “Everywhere I go, seems like Bush is on TV/We shed blood in the name of liberty” — her talent shines through.
However, 0304 as a whole is too slight to really impress. It’s easy-going fun, but Michelle Branch outshines this reinvented Jewel on most counts with sheer girl power.