It is a rare occurrence, but you probably know the sensation: you hear an artist for the first time, and after only a few minutes you feel that you are listening to something very special, the music seems to bypass the ears and brain, and goes directly into your heart and soul. This is what happened to this reviewer almost 3 years ago when Katell Keineg was appearing as supporting act of Luka Bloom. Buying her first album and seeing her in a full concert only enforced this feeling. Unfortunately, not many people took notice of O Seasons O Castles, one of the outstanding albums of recent years. So it is a positive surprise that she gets the chance for a second shot with Jet.
The most striking quality of Katell Keineg is her voice. She has an amazing range, can sound clean or dirty, and effortlessly goes from a whisper to a scream. On Jet, she shows that ability across diverse material, from the poppy "One Hell Of A Life", some haunting slow songs, over the almost traditionally Celtic "Enzo" to more upbeat and rough tracks. The lyrics are poetic and very sensitive. Even though large parts of the album are on a high level, some of the songs are less convincing. While variability is a good thing, sometimes she seems to get lost in putting too much into one album. Maybe focusing on her own qualities would be better than being influenced by trends like adding tape noise to songs (which is of questionable value in most cases anyhow).
While the material on Jet does not quite reach the level of her debut album, it still proves Katell Keineg's exceptional qualities, and we can only hope that it will sell better than O Seasons O Castles, so that we get the chance to hear much more from her.
