Not her best album, but pretty good.

Sarah McLachlan's best work came in the mid 90s with 'Fumbling Towards Ecstasy' and 'Surfacing'. She wrote great songs and she still does. There are some excellent songs on this album, most notably 'Fallen', 'Train Wreck' and 'World on Fire'. Her angst is still intact and her vocals are beautiful and emotional.

Her music, however, seems to have slipped into a comfortable rut in this album. There's very little (or absolutely nothing) of the folk rock influences or atmospheric arrangements of her earlier work. She had started down this path in 'Surfacing', but that album had enough highlights to balance. I read somewhere that she composed all the songs on a piano for the first time, instead of her guitar. Maybe she should go back to the guitar and regain some her rock groove rather than slide further into this comfortable rut, which will eventually lead to a completely boring album.



8/10