Half the Perfect World

1	I'm All Right 3:27
2	The Summer Wind 3:55
3	Blue Alert 4:10
4	Everybody's Talkin' 5:10
5	River 5:19
6	A Little Bit 4:02
7	Once in a While 4:00
8	(Looking For) The Heart of Saturday Night 3:27
9	Half the Perfect World 4:21
10	La Javanaise 4:11
11	California Rain 2:57
12	Smile 3:57

Barnes & Noble

Considering that Madeleine Peyroux took eight years between her debut Dreamland and its successor, 2004's breakthrough Careless Love, Half the Perfect World qualifies as a speedy follow-up. But that's the only thing speedy about it: Peyroux is a master of the languid, slow-and-easy ballad, of singing at just the right point behind the beat -- even if that point is unexpectedly far, as on her introspective version of "Everybody's Talkin'." Although it reconvenes much of the crew behind her last album, Half the Perfect World is not simply More Careless Love. Instead of anchoring the album in the past (aside from the Johnny Mercer standard "Summer Wind" and Charlie Chaplin's bittersweet classic "Smile"), Peyroux chooses songs from her contemporaries. She acknowledges her French roots with Serge Gainsbourg's "La Javanaise," returns to Leonard Cohen for two songs, covers Tom Waits's classic "(Looking For) The Heart of Saturday Night," and duets seamlessly with k. d. lang on Joni Mitchell's "River." Bigger surprises come from the four songs Peyroux herself had a hand in writing. Peyroux is a superb songwriter -- the wonderful "Don't Wait Too Long" was her lone contribution to Careless Love -- and her songs, such as the breezy "A Little Bit" and the gently swinging "I'm All Right" (written with Steely Dan's Walter Becker and producer Larry Klein), are the most joyful tracks on this seductive album. Peyroux makes only one misstep on Half the Perfect World: She sells herself short by 50 percent with the title. Steve Klinge

All Music Guide

Madeleine Peyroux took significantly less time than the eight years between her debut and its follow-up to release her third album, Half the Perfect World, which finds a more mature -- or at least less vulnerable -- singer, one who chooses to express herself with nuance rather than overtness. Often, like in the opening "I'm All Right" -- one of four original songs -- this aversion to unconcealed emotion works well, playing off the swelling Hammond, the swinging rhythm of the acoustic guitar (contrasting nicely with the hook of "It's all right, I've been lonely before"), and the simple drums. But at other times, like in "A Little Bit" -- which is bluesy and more upbeat and practically screams for an outburst, a growl, something -- her hesitancy instead almost comes across as a flaw, as a fear of fully expressing herself. On "Blue Alert," where Anjani's voice was full and seductive, rife with curling smoke rings and lipstick-stained wineglasses, Peyroux seems desolate and flat and she simplifies the situation too much, though she does fare much better on the other Anjani/Leonard Cohen piece and title track of the album. Here, she changes its perspective, mixing the characters together and sounding beautifully fragile, yet at the same time strong and certain, as she sings about her love. The same can be said for her version of the Johnny Mercer-penned "The Summer Wind," which uses a cleaner, less dramatic arrangement to convey the feeling that, though she's thinking about past events with some nostalgia, she's also able to accept the outcome and move forward with her life. This kind of resignation hangs heavy throughout the entire album, making every song she covers seem sadder than the original. Joni Mitchell's "River," sung with k.d. lang, is slow and heart-wrenching (lang's voice, especially, brings a sweet melancholy to it), and Peyroux's version of Charlie Chaplin's "Smile" has a kind of dejected resoluteness that makes you wonder if she can even follow the advice she's singing. This subtlety is two-fold, however. It's so prevalent in the music that it's hard to tell if it's hinting at greater depth or if it's really a protective blanket, an affected timidity to prevent exposure. The delicateness of Half the Perfect World is certainly nice, but Peyroux seems to be using it as a device to hide behind instead of an actual expression of feeling, and so while the album is an overall success, it still leaves questions lingering behind the softly clicking hi-hat, the wandering bass, of when the singer's really going to show herself completely. Marisa Brown