Katie Melua
Live At The O2 Arena

THE REVIEW

The major strength of this young artist, already a staple in the British music scene, is certainly the refinement, the class with which she gently envelops the listener.

Recorded in the splendid O2 arena of London (Greenwich Meridian), this live album dated 2008 features the artist's usual singer-songwriter Pop, strongly influenced primarily by more relaxed jazz, and secondly by blues and soul. A female version of Bublé? Not exactly, as, in the current state of things, Melua continues to maintain her own credibility without descending into cheesy plasticity, often even retrieving old and "elevated" fragments of music lost over the years.

The first track (at least in the CD version, with some cuts compared to the double vinyl) is "Piece By Piece," beautiful and delicate like the entire eponymous album, followed by the fourth and slightly more upbeat "My Aphrodisiac Is You." The bluesman ears in me (oh, the sadness...) perk up with "Crawling Up A Hill," a cover of the legendary John Mayall, and the version contained here is full and inspired.

"Ghost Town" is more reggae-infused, "Nine Million Bicycles" more pop. Other notable revivals include "On The Road Again" by Canned Heat (already present in the second album "Piece by Piece") and a good "Kozmic Blues" by Queen Janis Joplin.

Finally, a very pleasant and long LP, very "nocturnal," to enjoy in the car at midnight or in the shadows while sunk into an armchair (and here I again apologize for the clichés...). Ok, there's nothing to go crazy over, nothing to make you tear your hair out demanding Melua play more. But her smooth jazz is always delightful, and her voice, never overpowering and often whispered, insinuates itself and makes you hum her melodies with pleasure.