- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
She's an earnest storyteller, and in the land of steel guitars (and co-producer John Rich), there's no shame in tracks titled 'Love Is a Garden' and 'Thump, Thump,' two sweet, sway-along tunes.
-
Perfectly Clear is not only persuasive, but down-home, old-school country.
-
Between the grounded sweetness of her singing and the quirky naturalism in her lyrics, songs like the throwback-style 'Anyone but You' develop a naturally appealing sophisticated country.
-
Even if it doesn't sound more like a country album than any of her previous work, the best songs on Perfectly Clear do show an awareness of genre form that gives Jewel a more distinctive presence than many of her contemporaries on country radio.
-
Jewel wrote or helped write every song here save one, and the producer John Rich (of Big & Rich) has done little to hammer down her well-worn eccentricities: wordiness; imperfect rhymes; a sharp, assured voice that collapses for effect.
-
There is little hint of her past as a modern folk-rock singer, but she does hold on to a certain genuineness as a lyricist of songs of love and self-determination.
-
So it has the form and feel, but the devil is in the details, the songs that never quite hook and sometimes serve up some patently absurd moments, usually in the form of her overheated lyrics.
-
The album is overcrowded by placid soft-rock tunes like 'Two Become One' and 'Anyone But You' with schmaltzy choruses and flavorless piano-laden verses.