To the Limit is Joan Armatrading's most satisfying album of folk-jazz musings because it's her most open, accessible work. All too often, the elliptical crooning and guitar playing of this black Englishwoman have sounded alternately self-pitying and arrogant, but a different, more relaxed strategy guides the new record. With producer Glyn Johns at the helm, Armatrading winds up serene, quiet melodies that have the sprawl of folk music and the discursiveness of jazz, and then spins out the tunes at an easy but snappy pace.

This is an ingenious way of offsetting terse, touchy lyrics and tremulous vocals. In "Taking My Baby Up Town," Armatrading revels in the sensual sensation of parading a conquest on her arm in just the same way she's seen men showing off women all her life. In "You Rope You Tie Me," she acknowledges her attraction—and passion—by castigating the loved one so obsessively. The constantly recurring phrase, "You get too jealous," is plainly the root of the couple's troubles, and the singer is intent on making clear what's driven her to bring the relationship to an end.

Throughout, the sharp electric-guitar lines of Philip Palmer pull Armatrading's chunky acoustic rhythms along, and Henry Spinetti's drums do a lot to compound her urgency by avoiding every bit of sentiment. In dealing so specifically and spiritedly with her private concerns, Joan Armatrading has succeeded in making them matter to us. To the Limit is an apt title. (RS 284)

KEN TUCKER