Jenny Lewis Gets Ferocious, Digressive

Michaelangelo Matos | September 24, 2008 3:00 am

From time to time, we like to round up the all-important, all-summarizing last sentences of the biggest new-music reviews. After the jump, we look at the critical reaction to Jenny Lewis’ new solo album Acid Tongue, which just came out in the U.S.

• “The point isn’t that Lewis needs to stick to dirty jokes and jaunty twang (though country seems her natural milieu). There’s more than enough likeable, listenable material on Acid Tongue, yet the effect is nonetheless equivalent to Tiger Woods trying to conquer the mini-golf circuit. In these straitjacketed settings, Lewis’ considerable strengths as a lyricist and performer just aren’t given sufficient room to fully emerge.” (Pitchfork)

• “On the gospel-country title track, she is a wary but hopeful romantic: ‘We were unlucky in love/But I’d do it all again.’ And on the stirring, string-swamped ‘Trying My Best to Love You,’ she compares her love to angels’ wings, diamonds and crystal, taking the measure of happiness in the same way she has always dissected discontentment: ferociously.” (Rolling Stone)

• “Lewis excels in moments of sincere repose, even if she’s less invested in them nowadays. Her version of country has always had a Hollywood tinge, but now it’s overshadowing her indie underdog soul.” (Spin)

• “Acid Tongue is at its best—as on the standout title track—when Lewis keeps her voice and songwriting as unforced and natural as the recording, grounding the album’s many digressions with the heartfelt enthusiasm of a singer who’s exactly where she wants to be.” (AV Club)

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