Let's recap: This is the Canadian folk singer-songwriter's first proper new release in seven years, she is signed to Starbucks' Hear Music label and her voice has grown noticeably huskier. Now that that's out of the way, Joni Mitchell fans can give Shine the close listen it deserves.
Throughout Shine, Mitchell maintains the minimalist style of storytelling over the alternative tunings for which she has received repeated praise, while she and her wizened, deepened voice explore new lyrical frontiers. The first to sing "Hey farmer / Put away your DDT," Mitchell modernizes her famed environmental agenda in Shine. With pointed lyrics such as, "Shine on rising oceans and evaporating seas / Shine on our Frankenstein technologies" and "Shine on the red light runners / Busy talking on their cell phones," she shows she can tackle real issues in a time when most artists take refuge in the avant-garde. The title track sounds most reminiscent of the tone of her masterpiece, Blue, combining a haunting blues-folk sound with a chorus that recalls a Sunday school song. This theological undertone is echoed in the lyrics: "Shine on dying soldier / In patriotic pain / Shine on mass destruction / In some God's name!"
On "If," she finds inspiration in the Rudyard Kipling poem of the same name, reinterpreting his words over a modest drum-piano riff. The project plays to Mitchell's newfound strength: breathing life into voices from the past.
