** Joni Mitchell

TAMING THE TIGER

(Reprise)

At this point you don't expect Joni Mitchell to sound like anyone other than herself, and there's a comfortable familiarity to this disc. Even her new use of a digital guitar device that creates sounds of near-orchestral proportions provides color that blends well with the dreamy ambiance she's favored these past 20-plus years. Other old signposts are the sulky fusion injections from Wayne Shorter's soprano sax, her famously discursive singing style (a kind of asymmetrical rap), and a lyric stance that's both sad and defiant.

Actually, it's the lyrics where the disc comes up short. Although Joni may be an artist -- as she never tires of telling interviewers -- she ain't no poet, and as she's grown crankier over the years, her writing has become positively banal. Tiger is full of wince-inducing generalities about the wretchedness of things, excoriations along the lines of "lawyers and loan sharks are laying America to waste" ("No Apologies"). The more inward-looking songs are less ham-fisted, though a tendency to be precious is always lurking ("Since I lost you/I can't get through the day/Without at least one big boo hoo" -- "Man from Mars"). There are cuts -- "Stay in Touch," "Face Lift" -- where both lyric and music flow smoothly, but overall this set sounds a little forced, a little uninspired.

-- Richard C. Walls