Cat Power

Jukebox

[3/5]

There’s an argument to be made that the worst thing the famously erratic Chan Marshall-that’s Cat Power to you-ever did was get her shit together. Consider that a warning. Long-time fans who hated her slick, soulful and focused 2006 breakthrough, The Greatest, won’t find much to love on the first half of Jukebox, which doesn’t have her covering other artists’ songs as much as radically reconstructing them. Marshall has traveled this road before on 2000’s The Covers Record, where she turned standbys like the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” into tortured, skeletal ballads. Frustratingly, Jukebox takes a more soft-focus tack. The smooth-jazz reading of “Theme From New York, New York” won’t make anyone throw out their Frank Sinatra box sets, and the reverb-drenched lounge-blues of “Ramblin’ (Wo)man” bears zero resemblance to the shit-kicker penned by Hank Williams. The only moment of outright sacrilege is when Marshall transforms her own “Metal Heart” from a discordant wonder into a smoky piano ballad. Jukebox begins to mesmerize when Billie Holiday’s “Don’t Explain” gets a Spartan, darklands-country overhaul, and Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” seems beamed in from a Holiday Inn lounge run by David Lynch. Best of all, Marshall sounds depressed enough on both standouts, hinting she may not have it together after all. (MATADOR) Mike Usinger

ROCKS LIKE:

Nick Cave’s The Boatman’s Call

The Cowboy Junkies’ Trinity Session

Rage Against The Machine’s Renegades