This Way

1	Standing Still 4:30
2	Jesus Loves You 3:20
3	Everybody Needs Someone Sometime 4:08
4	Break Me 4:04
5	Do You Want to Play? 2:55
6	Till We Run Out of Road 4:45
7	Serve the Ego 4:57
8	This Way 4:16
9	Cleveland 4:09
10	I Won't Walk Away 4:45
11	Love Me, Just Leave Me Alone 3:47
12	The New Wild West 4:47
13	Grey Matter Live / Bonus Track 4:35
14	Sometimes It Be That Way Live / Bonus Track 4:10

Barnes & Noble

Though Jewel trekked to Nashville to record her third album with producer Dan Huff, This Way is not the Alaska native's bid to become the next Faith Hill. Instead, it's the best record of her career, short on precious lyrics and long on muscular twang 'n' roll. This Way displays Jewel's keen observational skills in heartfelt songs about the spiritual price of materialism ("Jesus Loves You"), the uncertain path our society is taking ("The New Wild West"), or just flat-out romantic yearning ("Standing Still"). Despite these weighty concerns, Jewel avoids excessive hand wringing, and she uses the rockin' arrangements to cut loose. The exotic "Serve the Ego" employs finger cymbals, Middle Eastern-flavored vocal phrasing, and racy lyrics about dominance and subservience. And the torchy "I Won't Walk Away" recalls her yearning hit "Foolish Games." Elsewhere, Jewel gives Joan Osborne a run for her money as she howls over the slide-guitar-driven rock of "Love Me, Just Leave Me Alone." If it seems that the precocious poet has forgotten her past, a pair of bonus live tracks, "Grey Matter" and "Sometimes It Be That Way," with their simple vocal-guitar arrangements, neatly recall the solid folk roots at the heart of this gem of a singer-songwriter. Dave Gil de Rubio

All Music Guide

Jewel came dangerously close to drowning in her own solemnity and good intentions with her second album, so it comes as a great relief that This Way, her third effort, finds her lightening up and sharpening her focus, creating an album that never feels as somber or polished as Spirit. In fact, it's her first genuine step forward, since it finds her enhancing the latent folk and country influences in her music, attempting to add grit to her songs and performances, while retaining the pop sense of Pieces of You's studiocraft that made Spirit a more sonically satisfying record than her debut. Consequently, this is probably the best record she has cut to date, even if she still is very quick to indulge in silly, naïve lyrics (it's not just her save-the-world sentiments -- who on god's green earth has pictures of Randy Newman strewn across the floor?). Nevertheless, Jewel sounds looser, more comfortable than she ever has, and the music matches her attitude. The same problems may still remain, but her strengths have been enhanced and, at its best, This Way offers some fine, sweet adult alternative folk-pop -- maybe it has some dull stretches, and maybe she still takes herself a bit too seriously, but it's a classy adult pop record all the same. Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Billboard

This Way is the 27-year-old singer/songwriter's most ambitious effort yet, illustrating her desire to take on the world's societal and political ills and color them with a variety of stylistic hues: There's cowpoke country, folk, rich balladry, blues, even a whimsical turn at ballsy rock. CT