Katie Melua rode in on the coat-tails of the ersatz jazz revival. Now with her second album she’s in danger of becoming a latter-day Sade. Not that Sade would have risked the nasty inverse sexism of the lyrics to the otherwise attractive opening track ‘Shy Boy’: “Most guys advertise by making eyes and telling lies”. A strange utterance, especially since Melua asks serious questions about racism in her own ‘Spider’s Web’ later on. Conversely, she has been wrongly hammered for the lyrics of ‘Nine Million Bicycles’, an attractive blend of MOR with eastern overtones. Indeed, a pedantic British scientist has taken her to task over the scientific (in)accuracy of the lyrics in ‘I Do Believe In Love’, in truth a very fine love song.
She turns in a commendable and sultry reworking of the Canned Heat classic ‘On The Road Again’, and uncovers similar wistfulness in The Cure’s ‘Just Like Heaven’, although her take on the standard ‘Blues In The Night’ is decidedly underdone. Tracks like ‘Nine Million Bicycles’ and ‘Halfway Up The Hindu Kush’ could easily trouble charts the world over; indeed virtually all the tracks are the epitome of radio-friendliness. Occasionally her voice takes on the edge of a Cerys Mathews but is quickly reigned in before it can frighten the playlisters.
In general, Piece By Piece rarely disturbs the dust and is decidedly more downbeat than her debut, with song credits for the originals shared by Melua and her manager Mike “Womble” Batt. The production is technology-free, with the warm, sparse and thoughtful arrangements allowing space for the conviction in Melua’s mellow voice to pour through. But you won’t have to mind the dresse