Jenny Lewis Issue #37

Acid Tongue (Warner Bros.)

By Rebecca Shore
Published: September 1st, 2008 | 12:19am

Jenny Lewis isn’t the cute little redhead from Troop Beverly Hills anymore. For that matter, neither is she owner of the timid voice that peeked out from behind the instruments on Rilo Kiley’s 2001 Take Offs And Landings.

OK, she’s still a cute redhead — and Lewis is still sporting that voice that can offer up lyrics sweetly where applicable — but somewhere between 2006’s soul-infused solo breakout, Rabbit Fur Coat with the Watson Twins, Rilo Kiley’s first major-label release in 2007, and this, her follow-up solo release, Jenny Lewis found her other voice. It’s a voice that is more mature, sometimes irreverent, often sultry, and always sincere. Apropos of this transformation, she named the resulting work Acid Tongue.

Opening track “Black Sand” is sweet and reminiscent of her back catalog, but there’s more to this wide-ranging collection than just that old Lewis. She ditches the affectation pretty soon after, slipping into something that is perhaps more comfortable for the admitted country-western fan. The honky-tonk riffs and folksy lyrics of “The Next Messiah” melt into a sultry back-and-forth between Lewis and singer-songwriter Johnathan Rice in a nearly nine-minute medley that’s easily the best on the album.

Most tracks on Acid Tongue tell stories of broken hearts, rage, and tragedy — as they rightly should in a tribute to the country-western genre. The title track, with its gospel-inspired chorus, is a stirring ballad of the dampened spirit: “To be lonely is a habit like smoking or taking drugs / And I’ve quit them both, but man was it rough / And now I am tired / It just made me tired.” Indie-demigod Elvis Costello lends his distinctive voice to the up-tempo duet “Carpetbaggers.” The list of collaborators, for that matter, reads like a who’s who of what’s hot in music: the Black Crowe’s Chris Robinson; She & Him’s M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel; plus the voice of Lewis’ sister, Leslie, and the stylings of her harmonica virtuoso father, Eddie Gordon.

The stripped-down method used to record the album (“entirely live ... all-analog, no-Pro-Tools” reads the press release) is refreshing for an artist who has really gained some ground in the music industry and has something like a gazillion resources at her feet. On Acid Tongue, Lewis has discovered a matured voice that suits her, and she runs with it irreverently, sultrily, sincerely.

—