audio review : Ithaca ( album ) … Paula Cole

audio review : Ithaca ( album ) ... Paula Cole

My biggest complaint about Paula Cole is the way she swayed from the artistic ferocity of This Fire, which remains my favorite album of hers. She returned to it briefly, for only about Fourteen seconds or so, on her previous album. She still can’t seem to keep the fire going with Ithaca, which borrows its metaphoric title from Homer’s Odyssey. It does, however, include one song I’d describe as a true return to form.

Elegy sparks slowly before going ablaze. It begins with an introspective narrative sang over a pleasant but uneventful piano melody, so the magic doesn’t begin until almost halfway in. When it does, it really is something to behold as Paula Cole; still playing the piano, over a symphony of tribal drums with rock guitars whining quietly in the background; wails and screams melodic ad-libs just like she used to.

I like how The Hard Way ends and the Sex song, in which she fingers her pink “lips” while thinking about her man, is epic, but the majority of the album, as soothing as it may be for a recently divorced Paula Cole, drowns in the waters of mediocrity before ever reaching the promised land. Hooks aren’t her strong point and that’s the problem. What are supposed to be the best parts are often the most lackluster.

my rating : 3 of 5

2010

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