These Four Walls

1	Fill Me Up 3:40
2	These Four Walls 2:57
3	Tuff Kid 3:08
4	Summer Dress 4:21
5	Cinnamon Road 3:51
6	Venetian Blue 3:48
7	The Bird 3:10
8	I'm Gone 2:53
9	Let It Slide 4:17
10	Even Here We Are 2:45
11	So Good to See You 3:43
12	That Don't Worry Me Now 3:41
13	Words 2:32

Barnes & Noble

Shawn Colvin's gentle, rolling melodies and sweet, casual voice can be deceptive. What seems on the surface to be a nostalgic love song or a catchy pop tune often turns out to be something unexpectedly tough-minded or bitter or conflicted. After all, "Sunny Came Home," the catchy Grammy-winning hit from 1996's A Few Small Repairs, told the story of a vengeful housewife torching her home. These Four Walls, Colvin's first album of new material since 2001's Whole New You, contains songs about reclusive fatalists (the beautifully lilting title track), schoolyard bullies (the twangy "Tuff Kid"), and masochistic lovers (the profanity-laced "The Bird"). And, of course, it contains some terrific nostalgic love songs that may be straightforward but are never clichéd (such as the upbeat, poppy "Fill Me Up" and the hopeful "Summer Dress," which has a seductive melody that rivals her classic "Polaroids") and a handful of what Colvin calls "fighting to get out" songs, including the Teddy Thompson duet "Let It Slide" and the bluesy "I'm Gone," which echoes Blind Faith's "Can't Find My Way Home." Colvin's always been a skilled interpreter, and here she covers Paul Westerberg's "So Good to See You" and the Bee Gees' "Words." In both depth and breadth, These Four Walls ranks with Colvin's best work. And a subtle and sensitive reading of U2's "Pride (In the Name of Love)" on the exclusive Barnes & Noble exclusive edition makes the disc all the more resonant. Steve Klinge

Entertainment Weekly

Colvin deserves to be heard by more than devoted cultists this time around. (A-) Marc Weingarten