Some musicians skirt the boundaries of familiarity without ever settling in the consciousness. That is the case with Joan Armatrading, she’s been around for ages and likely you’ve seen her name before but her music has long fallen off the radar of mainstream popular culture.
Her last album, ‘Into The Blues’ marked a stylistic departure and was a critical triumph earning her some commercial success in America but with ‘This Charming Life’ she returns to her true form: straight-forward soft-rock with a folk influence.
When it comes to rockin’ she’s no Rolling Stone, but Armatrading mixes different styles coherently without the end result becoming incongruous. ‘Going Back To New York’ is driven by a funky distorted guitar riff that sounds like a Led Zeppelin outtake while the synthesiser intro to ‘Love, Love, Love’ would make Ralf Hutter proud, if he were capable of any emotion.
There are some bright spots which demonstrate Armatrading’s evident talent as a song-writer, such as on the title track: a sweet song that bashfully rejoices in the grandeur of the world when in love. But there are times when her lack of subtlety can be a little grating, such as her dilemma whether or not to summon Oya, from Yorb mythology, the literal subject of ‘Goddess of Change’.
There are some further highlights as the album nears a conclusion, ‘Virtual Reality’, an odd but likeable diatribe against spending too much time on the internet and ‘Best Dress On’, a stomping rocker that ranks as one the best tracks on the album.
It is an overall uneven experience, intermittent moments of uplifting pop are tethered by too much forgettable filler, less than half of the tracks here will reward repeated listening and that is far too few by anyone’s standards. It is certainly not an album that will return Joan to her fame of the 1970s and 80s.