Keren Ann Zeidel's new album, Not Going Anywhere, is so dainty it may leave you craving a vat of fries from a corporation toward which the French are notoriously prone to arson. Zeidel isn't French; she's everything but. Living and working in Paris, the singer/songwriter looks as though she devoutly avoids all forms of bad cholesterol. Likewise, the songs on her third album are lean any way you slice 'em, varying from prudently understated to downright malnourished. Yet, Not Going Anywhere brims with spotless pop melodies. The question is whether listeners will grasp such airy, unadorned fare.
Zeidel is no chanteuse; rather, she's a chirper, and a beautiful one at that. Her voice lays soft and low over Not Going Anywhere, gently touching down now and then, only to flit off after a few hushed syllables. At times she's frustratingly reticent; over "Polly"'s spare opening, she warbles when she ought to belt. Other times she's nearly inaudible. But then a certain artlessness is this album's vibe; it's best taken at face value as a comely collection of modest pop songs working nicely within their narrow dynamic confines and exploding with detail upon more careful examinations.
While it may be tempting to call this a folk record, its instrumentation is generally too ornate for that genre appellation. Yet the title track (a strong if somewhat misleading opener) is unalloyed save a few coruscating string swells, and that's to Zeidel's benefit. Her voice carries a lone acoustic guitar better than it would a lavish orchestra, and is easily smothered by overzealous production. Hasty, soft-spoken verses on "Sailor & Widow" are weighed down by a tepid blues vamp (though the track is salvaged by a massively catchy chorus), while "Polly" climaxes with a surfeit of gilt horns and tip-toeing glockenspiel, bearing an otherwise perfectly acceptable song toward kitsch.
While Zeidel seems to have abandoned her penchant for pasteurized trip-hop (aping Portishead and Massive Attack at best; at worst, a middling Dido impression) and nodded off toward a more traditional breed of songwriting, Not Going Anywhere deserves no adult-contemporary belittlement. She's too sincere, her stylistic breadth too broad, her songs too emotive and endowed of too long and storied a history to invite that branding. "Sit in the Sun" and "By the Cathedral" tug at opposing emotions, at once jocund and unsettling.
There's also a nagging spirituality to Not Going Anywhere, more secular than devout. Children's choral intonations on "End of May" add to the aloof, otherworldly aura. The young throats appear again, accompanied by a mildly stilted harpsichord on "Right Now and Right Here", to slightly less moving effect. Still, these songs are thoroughly engrossing, and the world Zeidel bears the listener through is affable and beatific, if occasionally soporific. On "Seventeen", she sings, "Life is a mellow dream, almost unspoken," and it somehow resonates beautifully: The song is the album's most somnolent, replete with lulling harp, bleary strings, and soft, almost undetectable wind instrument flourishes. Stay awake if you can, and notice the scrupulous attention to detail that makes Not Going Anywhere such a pleasant listen.
