Edie Brickell's musical career has been far more due to the fickle forces of serendipity than it has some sort of carefully laid play, where she gets a killer demo together shops it around until she can find an agent who is interested in more than "between the sheet" music and catching a break despite all the calculation. In the mid 80's Edie was cajoled to hop up on stage with an offbeat Texas outfit called the New Bohemians, and ever since then her musical career has been little more than a series of happy accidents, with no more aim that shooting rubber bands at the stars.

Thus it should be no great surprise that her output as a solo artist since parting ways with the new Bohemians after '90s Ghost of a Dog, marrying, having a child and then divorcing Paul Simon, has been spotty to put it mildly. She returned with her first solo effort in 1994, Picture Perfect Morning and then 2002's Ultimate Collection compilation which included many unreleased tracks, suggesting that though her releases had been scant that she at least keeping a hand in the songwriting game. The truth is that all the while she worked quite regularly at her craft. Like always her music is hooky and easy going, charming but weightless. With her winsome breathy voice as her chief strength she still has the chops to turn out some pretty nice tracks.

The houseband she works with are some of the finest in the industry - producer Charlie Sexton on guitar and other instruments, Carter Albrecht on keyboards, Pino Palladino on bass, and Steve Gadd on drums, she churns out lilting and charming rolk-rock tracks that are occasionally tinged with a touch of jazz. Lyrically, she still leans on her poetic fragments that work the rueful nature of love and romance. Even the songs that seem lyrically prickly are given to good-natured arrangements that do sound a bit generic after the course of the record has played out.

Just like the old days she relies heavily on the repeated phrase and surrounding herself with fantastic musicians that can flesh it out so as to make it work. And as you might imagine there are two songs here that you could slip into Norah Jones Come Away With Me. Then again after all these songs are aimed at old fans that are already going to get her, These guys aren't looking to shake up the world here, there just hoping commercial lightning strikes twice. Though this is not likely, I still enjoyed mysel listening to this record, she has a way about her, that you can't deny.