'I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss': Music review

Life begins at 47.

 

At least it does for Sinead O’Connor. Well into her fifth decade, the obstinate star has created the most lustful, loud and, dare I say, commercial album of her career. It rocks in a way Sinead never has — not even when she came up in the 1980s as a 21-year-old with a shaved head and a don’t-mess-with-me attitude.

In some ways, the new album conforms to an image we have of O’Connor that has rarely been reflected in the actual music. She’s most commonly viewed as willful, strident and defiant, yet many more of her songs have been brooding than forceful. Most of her pieces move slowly and sound hushed, forcing her to murmur the lyrics rather than exercise her glorious shout.

To boot, O’Connor ate up years with muted and reverent “theme” albums devoted to Irish traditional songs, reggae classics or acoustic-electric amalgams.

Her long-delayed coming-out began with the previous album, “How About I Be Me (And You Be You)?” in 2012, which picked up the pace and even included a few songs you could describe as giddy.

O’Connor goes further on “I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss,” telegraphing her evolution right in the cover shot: It slices years off her age, depicting her in a vampy wig, clutching a phallic electric guitar while her mouth hangs open with seductive intent.

As the shot advertises, more electric guitars slash and churn through the music than before. “Dense Water Deep Down” sets a hymnal tune over a chugging riff; “Kisses Like Mine” has a Stones-like kick.

Key songs build in pace and volume, most dramatically “The Voice of My Doctor,” which escalates until O’Connor delivers the punkiest vocal of her career. For “James Brown,” she growls and snarls over a cool Afro-beat riff. The track includes a sax solo from Seun Kuti, whose father, Fela, created the genre.

“In the words of James Brown,” O’Connor intones, “I came to get down.”

Much of the album finds her characters in equal heat, but their desire is nearly always thwarted. In “Your Green Jacket,” the narrator is reduced to making love to her romantic object’s garment rather than his flesh. In “The Voice of My Doctor,” the character channels her shrink, who scolds her about her romantic pursuits.

O’Connor doesn’t leave the character she depicts panting. The sequence of the tracks on the album creates a coherent and hopeful story line. It starts with a song of deep, erotic need - “How About I Be Me,” which rates as O’Connor’s most rapturous R&B song since “Nothing Compares 2 U.” It ends with two pieces that find her scotching romance to focus on loving herself. The result creates a perfect arc — one O’Connor has, here, fully realized.