- Blown Cover
“Old Hamlet’s done now, dead and gone,” Madeleine Peyroux sings in the title track of her fifth album. The line sets off a disc with Shakespearean preoccupations—betrayal, lost love, and mortality, to name the big ones—that put Peyroux in darker territory than her previous, ...

By Ted Scheinman for Washington City Paper

- Southern siren Madeleine Peyroux ...
has been called a modern Billie Holiday. Released on March 10, the pop/jazz vocalist's fourth album Bare Bones proves that comparisons to such legendary songstresses as Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Edith Piaf are entirely warranted.

Peyroux began singing at 15 when she discovered the street musicians in Paris's Latin Quarter, and soon after joined The Lost Wandering Blues and Jazz Band. Since then, Peyroux has been performing and recording to great critical acclaim. With her interesting blend of French and Southern roots, Peyroux's new album is simultaneously reminiscent of the different styles of Fitzgerald and Piaf.

As she sings in "River of Tears," Peyroux's album seems to suggest that her listeners "turn off the telephone, open up another bottle … let it get real quiet, turn that lamp way down low," and enjoy some soothing jazz. The rich, deep quality of her voice is immediately noticeable on the intro track "Instead." All of the album's 11 songs were co-written by Peyroux-with the exception of "I Must Be Saved," which she wrote on her own-and each is lyrically and melodically beautiful. The album's trajectory moves from feelings of despair, to loss, to acceptance and then hope, gaining momentum as it progresses. The first single off the album, "You Can't Do Me" is a fun song with a strong beat and catchy hook. But Peyroux's slow, enchanting songs, such as "Damn the Circumstances" and "Love and Treachery" are definitely the most memorable. Peyroux is keeping vocal jazz alive and well, and Bare Bones will take you right back to a jazz lounge of the Latin Quarter in the 1950s-a highly enjoyable musical relic of more elegant days.

by Carolyn Gregoire for The McGill Tribune

- The empress of the jazzy, languid groove ...
does what she has done on her two bestsellers (and her half-forgotten 1996 debut); purr intimately about life and the iniquities of love over retro backings of brushed drums and polite piano that evoke Billie Holiday.

by Neil Spencer for The Observer

- Madeleine Peyroux is finding her voice
It takes a lifetime to write well. Years of throat-clearing can go into finding your true voice. Small wonder some interpretive singers who long to pen their own pieces bide their sweet time before making the leap.

by Jim Farber for New York Daily News

- Whatever the process, it works
... working with a handful of other writers (mostly Klein, plus Julian Coryell, Joe Henry, even Steely Dan's Walter Becker), Peyroux has produced an album of originals instead of her usual mostly-covers affair.

By Jon Garelick for the Boston Phoenix

- ...Peyroux crosses over into full-fledged-songwriter terrain..

By Corey duBrowa for Paste

- Jazz-pop vocalist Madeleine Peyroux surrounds herself with some fine collaborators ...
... on "Bare Bones" (***, out March 10 on Rounder), including producer Larry Klein -- best known for his work with Joni Mitchell -- and Steely Dan's Water Becker. Peyroux also had a hand in writing every song on "Bare Bones," a first for her, and this collection finds her seeking hope against a backdrop of loss and change.

Martin Barrows - Detroit Free Press