[review 2006: the odds and ends]

The good news: Comfort of Strangers is no Daybreaker. The bad news: Comfort of Strangers is no Central Reservation, either.

For her fourth studio album, Beth Orton made some sweeping changes. She’s completely eliminated any trace of electronica from her music, apparently refashioning herself as a straightforward folk artist. Instead, she’s turned to Jim O’Rourke to produce the whole affair, and a small group of musicians to serve as a more traditional backing band. Orton also seems to take a lighter approach this time around; on previous albums even the quiet folk ballads had a dramatic, melancholic quality that is almost completely absent from Comfort of Strangers. This isn’t necessarily an unwelcome change, though. Unlike many other artists that turn up after a years-long absence looking as though they swallowed a truckload of anti-depressants, Orton actually makes Comfort of Strangers work without becoming precious or saccharine. Kudos to Orton for realizing the world doesn’t need another Sarah McLachlan.

The greatest victory Orton pulls off here is turning Comfort of Strangers into the antithesis of Daybreaker, an album at times overwrought and overproduced. Nothing on Comfort of Strangers feels particularly belaboured, and in fact the general atmosphere of the album is carefree and relaxed. And the more I listen to the album, the more Orton’s new direction makes sense. Though I will always have a soft spot for Trailer Park, the fact is there are plenty of people who do the electronic-folk fusion far better these days—even drastic remixes of Orton’s own songs bear this out. So as an antidote to the ills Ryan Adams and company inflicted upon Beth Orton’s career, Comfort of Strangers succeeds.

Where Comfort of Strangers fails, however, is in attempting to reach the previous highs of Orton’s career. The album is a fresh start for Orton, but she has yet to prove that she can make her new formula work on the same emotional and musical level as Central Reservation. The album sounds like the perfect soundtrack to a convertible road trip through midwestern America, in that it sounds effortlessly beautiful and reminds one of the open country. Hell, she has a song called “Heartland Truckstop.” But Comfort of Strangers rarely engages on a more immediate level; the album works best as background music and stubbornly refuses to climb above. Songs like “Countenance,” “Comfort of Strangers” and “Shopping Trolley” are all very agreeable but not all that interesting. This is not yet an album you can love passionately.

But Beth Orton albums have always been slow growers. The merits of Central Reservation weren’t obvious until the tenth or twentieth time I heard “Pass In Time”; there’s no reason why Comfort of Strangers couldn’t reveal its particular charms over time as well.