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| Album Rating: B+ |
Listening to
Raven is like taking out an old family album from the attic and blowing the dust off: those Kodak images may be long gone, but there's still something in them that makes you come back time after time. Likewise, the temptation to look at singer-songwriter Paula Cole's latest through rosy lenses is strong. After all, she's best known for writing the theme song of
Dawson’s Creek, a show that is best known today for spawning James VanDerBeek’s crying face. Meanwhile, the last time we saw a singer-songwriter go as huge as Cole did in her time was when "Call Me Maybe" inspired college sports teams across America to show how witty and original they could be (which is to say, not very).
With all of that in mind, Cole has an uphill battle to fight
. It’s a testament to her insight and perspective, though, that even when it sounds straight out of 1993,
Raven brims with wisdom for modern times. Even as Cole derives much of her material from her personal experience, she frames it through the lens of a history that's just as relevant today as it was in her youth.
