Brave

by

Jamie O'Neal

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Jamie O'Neal finally returns with a follow up album to her fantastic 2000 debut SHIVER. With a great debut album like that, it's hard to come up with something just as good. In that respect, BRAVE is not as good as SHIVER. It's still got some great tracks though. A lot are leftovers from her unreleased 2003 album for Mercury Records, she was then dropped and signed to Capitol Records, and here we are now. The first single "Trying To Find Atlantis" is a top 20 hit and it's lots of fun, a great uptempo song. Other older songs making the cut are the fantastic ballads "When Did You Know", "On My Way To You", and "Ready When It Comes". The new songs will take more getting used to for me but some highlights include "Follow Me Home", "Girlfriends" (bound to be a big hit), and the title track. Overall, it's good to have her back in the music fold!

Prime Cuts: When Did You Know, Brave, Ready When It Comes

If a picture could paint a thousand words, O'Neal's latest CD cover speaks volumes. With her bronze tan and her platinum blonde locks, O'Neal's new Tara Reid looks compasses the direction of her latest musical venture. Slink, trendy, polished and pop-country savvy, "Brave" is glittered with all the beeps and whistles of modern pyrotechnics and a few sonic surprises (including hand claps, a kids' chorus and dogs barking). Fans of this Australian's debut record "Shiver," will find have much to savor as "Brave" continues the pop-country in-roads already paved by O'Neal's previous effort. Nevertheless, as a Nash-pop record, how does it flare? There is at least a knockout, a few tracks that could pass muster and a few perfunctory fillers.

Nowadays, few tracks have that arresting prowess to stop the listener dead in the tracks as in the Monty Criswell & Tim Mensy composition "When Did You Know." A gorgeous piano-and-strings power ballad punctuated with the penetrating chorus: "When did you know I wasn't the one," the demise of romance has had never been so acerbically captured in song. Fueled by O'Neal's melismatic delivery, this is powerful stuff---a track that has hit written all over it and it absolutely deserves incessant airplay.

Other soul stirring moments abound: the title cut, co-penned by O'Neal, is a little homily about weathering the storms of life. With her heartfelt delivery that resembles a more mature sounding LeAnn Rimes "Brave" is bound to incur "Amens" of ascent. Somehow this theme of strength in the midst of tribulation is carried over to the propulsive "Ready When It Comes." Co-written by O'Neal, Beth Neilsen Chapman and Annie Roboff, "Ready When It Comes" with its inviting melody and its inspirational lyrics are sure to assuage those who had been haggard by life.

The rest of the songs are pretty average: lead single "Trying to Find Atlantis," is a catchy upbeat number whereby the search for Mr. Right is likened to the hunt for the mythical city. However, though "Atlantis" is cute and novel, it's no where near the grandeur of being a musical world wonder. On the hand, with its heavy synth work, "Naïve" sounds like it belongs to a Lindsay Lohan album. The self-indulgent "I Love My Life" starts off with dogs barking and every cliché you can ever find in a country song. The banjo driven backings does not save this song from its ignominy. However, the real dub is the River Rutherford co-penned "Devil on the Left." Somehow someone must believe that more is better, this is why on this swampy blues rocker, almost everything is thrown in: from a "gospel" like choir, to a kids' chorus, to hand claps and soaring (and often deafening) guitars. And the ensuring result is that "Devil on the Left" is a work of chaos with the guitars almost drowning out a breathless O'Neal.

Ironically, "Brave" isn't O'Neal's most courageous album. Very much the songs color very safely within the bounds of current country music coming from Nashville. Though "When Did You Know" is a gem, it is indeed a career record in the making.