Rules for Jokers
Rules for Jokersis the third CD from Thea Gilmore, a British singer-songwriter who is equally at home with delicate acoustic ballads and stinging, electric-guitar-driven songs. Gilmore's lyrics are full of dense, poetic imagery, and she delivers them with an urgency that wouldn't be out of place in a punk band. Even when she sings a melodically gentle song like "Holding Your Hand" or "Take Me Home," with its suggestively swaying rhythm, her fierceness is never far from the surface. And when she lets loose and cranks up the volume on "Fever Beats" and "This Girl Is Taking Bets," the words flow from her with a bitter wit that recallsElvis Costelloin his younger, angrier days. Thea Gilmore wrote and recorded these songs when she was only 21 years old. If she sounds this good now, how much better will she be when she's had a chance to see more of the world?--Michael Simmons