Album Review: Sheryl Crow, Be Myself

The pre-release hype has built this up as a return to Crow’s classic sound, and if you’re a fan of her first three albums, including ‘98’s rocking Globe Sessions, then you’re going to like this record of adult pop, built on Stonesy guitars with big, big choruses. It’s perfectly suited to driving on a sunny day, so car-friendly in fact that you’re half expecting an interruption from the Google maps lady, telling you to turn left.

Co-writer Jeff Trott is back on the team after nearly 10 years, ensuring the throwback sound of this deliberate volte-face, following her stab at a modern country record with 2013’s Feel Like Home. That album, despite doing respectable business at the tills, felt a bit forced – although, in truth, neither it nor its soul-inspired predecessor, 100 Miles From Memphis, are without their charms.

Front-loaded, almost as if to prove a point, ‘Alone In The Dark’, ‘Long Way Back’ and ‘Be Myself’ could all follow ‘Halfway There’ as singles. Indeed, you could imagine any of the tracks here on day-time radio. The pace falters with the big ballad ‘Love Will Save The Day’, which is a bit solemn for its own good, and ‘Rest Of Me’ shoots for some acoustic jauntiness only to fall short. There are the obligatory jabs at the tech-obsessed and the environmentally careless, hardly surprising given Crow’s previous public demands that we use one sheet of toilet paper per visit. Overall, though, it’s a successful reminder of why people fell in love with her in the first place.