Jess Klein comes on like somebody who likes sex. Darkroom, the galloping first number on Strawberry Lover, begins with the request, Cmon now baby, wont you touch me?/Touch me, touch me before I go insane. On the soaring Sink My Teeth In, the singer-songwriter takes charge of her man with lines like, Lean your weight into me boy and Thats where you can get it free. And folk-tinted country is rarely as sultry as Kleins delivery on the title track, which is made for nights when the candles have been lit and the wine is flowing.
Klein mostly plays it safe on her uneven fifth album, swinging from crisply played but otherwise unspectacular roots-rock to dashed-dream ballads. Shed do well to embrace her experimental side, because her most successful moments here come when she shoots high. The albums mindblower is Soda Water, a spliff-tastic foray into dub-reggae thats as bong-friendly as anything off Sandinista. With equally brilliant results, the haunting Shootout At The Candy Shop sets a tale of bullets and rebel hearts to ghost-town guitars and military-tattoo drums.
All too often, though, Klein comes off as a lesser Lucinda Williams, especially when she slows things down to a molasses crawl on Willing To Change. Featuring some truly awkward rhymes (When the lights went red/Gridlocked in your head), the song is a mopey downer about changing oneself to keep a dead-in-the-water relationship afloat. Strawberry Lover may start off with a sexually charged bang, but it ends with a decidedly limp whimper.