Paula Cole
This Fire

It must have been a shock (...the Monkey ???eh eh!) for Paula Cole, having to contend with vocal powerhouses such as Kate Bush and Sinéad O'Connor, but when you have a guardian angel with the last name Gabriel, you can be sure you'll come out of it with minimal wounds or, at best, with your head held high. In the not-too-distant past, in fact, the former Genesis member, entrusted the promising American singer-songwriter with the female role for splendid duets (Blood of Eden and Don't Give Up, to name just two), taking her on tour with him. Not only that. During that wonderful show, Peter Gabriel proved to be even more of a gentleman by giving Paula great visibility, both musically and scenically (who doesn't remember the fantastic Secret World Live?!).

Paula, for her part, managed wonderfully and, having passed the test, rolled up her sleeves so as not to squander what had been granted to her up to that point. Yes, because despite the good reception of her first work ("Harbinger" 1994) released shortly after the tour, the singer-songwriter struggled to establish herself in the overcrowded female singer-songwriter scene across the ocean (I think of early McLachlan, Fiona Apple, Natalie Merchant, early Alanis and Sheryl Crow, Tori Amos, etc.). What can I say, a true Golden Age.

She then wisely devised a clever strategy for this "This Fire". So clever that many fell for it, myself included. Beware: not that this is a bad album, quite the contrary. Twelve years later, it still holds up well. But it's always the same story: trying to hit a small bird with a cannonball.

In this case, the cannonball was called "Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?" an immense and misunderstood commercial hit, to which "I Don't Want To Wait" should be added, which certainly hit the jackpot but also diluted much of the brighter warmth that this bonfire emitted. I myself found myself disoriented in front of a real sonic mishmash: piano ballads and easy-pop, soul nods and dark spirals (the stunning "Nietzsche's Eyes"). A continuous up and down between structure and de-structure of the song format.

The sequence of the first six songs would be enough to show that Paula is much more than "where have all...". Perhaps a bit of all the aforementioned singer-songwriters, perhaps none. If the entire album had maintained the high profile of its first half and hadn't gotten lost in unnecessary tangents ("Road To Dead", "Me"), we would be looking at a five-star album. In truth, I have the impression that with "This Fire" Paula said all she had to say and that this work constitutes both the opening and the closing of the same circle (even if it is of fire).

For this reason: three only balls (which remain, as my dear fellow citizen Colleoni teaches, a good reason for pride).

P.S. The archangel Gabriel (with squire in tow, Toni Levin) further enhances the work by appearing as the second voice in "Hush, hush, hush".