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Shawn Colvin
These Four Walls
(Nonesuch)
First Appeared in The Music Box, September 2006, Volume 13, #9
Written by John Metzger
For her first outing in five years, Shawn Colvin jumped to the more
adventurous confines of the Nonesuch label. Nevertheless, These Four Walls
is a strikingly conservative affair. Filled with songs about love and loss, the
album largely finds Colvin comfortably settling into the sort of easy-going,
subtly textured folk-rock that mature singer/songwriters have a tendency to
make. Lyrically, Colvin remains at the top of her game, and throughout the set,
she neither poses questions nor provides answers. Instead, she poetically
captures the emotional conflicts that are at war within the souls of her
characters. On Fill Me Up, for example, she struggles with committing to
a relationship, while on the subsequent title track, she wearily resigns herself
to making it work. Elsewhere, the rebellion of Tuff Kid gives way to the
bruised liberation of Summer Dress, and the teary-eyed pining of
Venetian Blue mutates into the awkward longing of So Good to See You.
The problem with These Four Walls, however, lies with the music that
she and longtime producer John Leventhal have concocted. Although the entirety
of the effort is pleasantly delivered, it also is, quite simply, too tasteful
and polite. For all of its playfulness, Fill Me Up could have used a
little more bite, and there is a seemingly never-ending stream of mid-tempo
tracks, all of which spring from the same single-minded set of safely approved
components. Only the punchy, Elvis Costello-ish intonations of The Bird
and the manner in which Colvin, Patty Griffin, and Marc Cohn merge their voices
on Cinnamon Road succeed in dispelling the monochromatic overtones that
threaten to suffocate the affair. Colvin is too good a songwriter to become
completely mired within the ensuing mediocrity, but at times on These Four
Walls, it’s difficult to discern the sharper edges of her lyrics when her
arrangements are so clean, so smooth, and so unremarkable. 
These Four Walls is available from Amazon.com.
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Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2006 The Music Box
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