These Four Walls - Shawn Colvin

Advantages: Lots of great tracks
Disadvantages: None

...I think this is the best Shawn Colvin album out there (see my review of A Few Small Repairs for my thoughts on the second-best one). I don't want to bore you with a complete blow-by blow run through, but I'll cover the highlights of what I consider to be an excellent album. This is a 1990s rock album with folk and country influences, and it mixes those genres together fantastically. The first track, Polaroids, is particularly strong, with a very catchy but slow tune and a lovely light touch to the production (which continues through the rest of the album - production on some tracks is credited to Larry Klein, the celebrated producer, and he certainly knows his stuff). The lyrics are great as well ("I am too young to die/ Too old for a lullaby/ Too tired for life on the ledge"). Set the Prairie On Fire is a sensuous track... Read review

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Advantages: A singer song writer with talent
Disadvantages: None come to mind

...being co-written by long-time guitarist "John Leventhal" he also had a hand in producing the bulk of this collection of songs. The album opens with the title track, with it’s programmed drums by John Leventhal which has one Dennis McDermott playing hi-hat to introduce the track along with Shawn playing acoustic guitar, the sound that makes this track stand out is Leventhal’s Fender six string bass which along with his backing vocals add the perfect background for Ms Colvin to sing against opening line “China gets broken And it will never be the same” and the album is off and running. For the next cut which is a pivotal song in her catalogue “Diamond in the rough” which is still a live favourite, Shawn has Suzanne Vega in the backing chorus Shawn has also used Lucy Kaplanski (who is a singer song... Read review

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Advantages: It's Shawn Colvin
Disadvantages: None come to mind

...This album has John Leventhal as producer again, (just like Shawn's debut album "Steady On") he has also co-written most of the songs as well. The overall sound of this album is an improvement on the previous 2 (and the sound quality was good on those) as the album was mixed by the very talented Bob Clearmoutain (who has worked with the likes of David Bowie in the past) and mastered by the amazin' Bob Ludwig (he did the re-mastering on the Roxy Music and Bryan Ferry re-issues the sound on both sets of albums is incredible). The album itself opens with a typical Shawn Colvin song "Sunny came home" with the story contained in the lyrics autobiographic in nature; she even sneaks the album title in 1 line, "It's time for a few small repairs she said". A stand out track for me is the song "The facts about Jimmy" this track is made... Read review

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