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** Jonatha Brooke

STEADY PULL

(Bad Dog)

Six years after her split with singing partner and Story co-founder Jennifer Kimball, Jonatha Brooke makes another break — this is her FIrst studio album without Alain Mallet, her keyboardist, husband, producer, and musical collaborator since the Story days. Mallet’s presence was always a mixed blessing: he encouraged the sophisticated jazz turns in Brooke’s songwriting, but he layered her tracks with more synthesizers and world-beat touches than necessary. Now that she’s overhauled her sound, Brooke has made an album that might have sounded fresh and current three years ago.

For starters, she’s discovered loops and samples. “How Deep Is Your Love” gets into trendy Beck territory, and its allusion to an old Bee Gees hit is cute on the FIrst listen. For “Walking” she brings in keyboardist Mitchell Froom, who applies the same sonic tricks (starting with that overused drum loop) that he’s used on every album for the past decade. And the title track attempts an unpleasant folk-rap crossover (with Michael Franti guesting).

Brooke’s usual aces in the hole — her expressive singing and long, graceful melodies — get lost amid the gimmickry. And she must be sick of hearing about how poetic her lyrics are, because she’s started turning out clunky metaphors (“I bottled up my hope before it spread too thin”) and obscure name dropping (“We pinned the tail on Jonny Polanski”). Brighter spots include “Out of My Mind,” the FIrst rocker of her career, and “New Dress,” a Neil Finn duet that harks back to her Story style. But chalk most of this one up to mid-career crisis.

— Brett Milano