| With Telling Stories, her first album since 1995's New Beginnings, Tracy
Chapman returns to the spare, unsentimental feel of her early work. In
doing so, she recaptures some of the urgency and simple melodiousness
that made her debut a soulful folk-rock classic. There's maturity here,
exemplified by recurring spiritual metaphors. On "Unsung Psalm" she imagines
her funeral, singing, "I'd have a halo and flowing white robes if I live
right." "Wedding Song" offers the plainspoken, devotional line, "I reach
out for your hand for you I'd don a veil." The musical arrangements, too,
are pared-down, with ghostly banjo, silvery fiddle, and guitar woven into
subtle drum loops. Though not as immediately captivating as her debut,
Telling Stories is a focused return to form for Chapman. |
