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As with most of The House, songs like the folk-inflected opener "I'd Love to Kill You," the Eastern-tinged "The Flood," and the yearning and pretty "Red Balloons," take time to build and grab you slowly with deft, biting lyrics and Melua's lilting, burnished vocals.
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Orbit's production doesn't find as forceful a match as it did with Madonna on Ray of Light, and Melua's style still seems too thin to support true greatness, but The House is a promising start, a sporadically grand album that finds another talented artist rescued from mediocre pop oblivion.
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The songs and arrangements on The House recast Ms. Melua as an arty girl gone wild.
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With sophisticated grace and evocative lyricism, Melua has made a brave reinvention that raises her already lofty artistic bar.