For her first album since 2001, Colvin’s co-written nine of the album’s 13 tracks with producer John Leventhal, and her guests, including Patty Griffin, Marc Cohn, Teddy Thompson and ace pedal steel Greg Leisz, give the album an overall country/folk/rock feel. Exhibiting something of the flavour of Luka Bloom’s Innocence, the album also reflects Colvin in relaxed sophistication mode. There’s an enervating country fiddle on the raunchy ‘Tuff Kid’, and ‘The Bird’ suggests she might have been poking around Sheryl Crow’s nest. Tracks like the soft-rocking ‘Fill Me Up’ and the reflective ‘These Four Walls’ are as substantial and as charming as anything she’s ever written. ‘Venetian Blue’ is slow and slinky, allowing Colvin’s homely voice space to open up more than usual.
‘Let It Slide’ steals a mandolin riff from The Faces’ ‘Maggie May’, and her cover of ‘Even Here We Are’ by one-time Replacements main-man Paul Westerberg is rhythmically hypnotic.
On ‘That Don’t Worry Me Now’ she evokes the spirit of Emmylou Harris before closing with a sombre interpretation of the Bee Gees’ ‘Words’ that might help erase the memory of the gutless Boyzone version. Although Colvin eschews any notion of adhering to a formula, she’s hardly pushing the envelope on this work. But with her confidence and the accessibility of the material, These Four Walls adds to an already impressive body of work and might even attract new converts.