Review: Cat Power

Review: Cat Power

Cat Power 'Jukebox': Aidin Vaziri | Listening to the second album of covers by Chan Marshall is a bit like going for a nice stroll off the edge of Niagara Falls. One minute you're looking over the clouds, feeling the air sucked out of your lungs as she transforms Frank Sinatra's signature "New York, New York" into a sleepy Southern blues romp; the next you find yourself caught in the longest, most boring freefall ever, as the neurotic indie-rock pinup listlessly vamps her way through Bob Dylan's "I Believe in You." Only you don't end up wet. Following the course set out by Cat Power's previous release, 2006's woozy "The Greatest," this is an album dominated by subdued pedal-steel guitars and dusty keyboards, with Marshall's bourbon-soaked drawl merely floating in the mix. She takes on some pretty amazing songs - from James Brown's "Lost Someone" to Joni Mitchell's "Blue" - but rarely gives them the paranoid-but-pretty quality of her own work. In fact, it's a revamped version of "Metal Heart," from her 1998 album "Moon Pix," that jumps out of the procession with its stark arrangement and crushing emotional punch. For some reason, hearing her sing Hank William's "Ramblin' Man" as "Ramblin' (Wo)man" just doesn't have the same effect. Neither does her stony take on George Jackson's "Aretha, Sing One for Me." All the elements for a great album are in place - amazing voice, stellar songs, organs - but in the end it all just seems to limply collapse.