Entertainment Weekly (2/27/04, p.99) - "[Brooke's] fourth solo album [is] full of wry wisdom..." - Rating: B+
Personnel: Jonatha Brooke (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, mandolin, autoharp, piano, Wurlitzer piano, Fender Rhodes piano, Clavinet, keyboards, bass, drums, percussion); Goffrey Moore (electric guitar, E-bow, bass, programming); Eric Bazillian (electric guitar, Wurlitzer piano, bass, drums, shaker); Ryan Freeland (electric guitar, keyboards, drums, programming); Mitchell Froom (piano, Hammond B-3 organ, keyboards, Moog synthesizer); Darren Embry (bass); Dorian Crozier (drums, percussion).
Producers: Jonatha Brooke, Ryan Freeland, Goffrey Moore, Eric Bazilian.
Simply put, Jonatha Brooke knows how to write wonderful pop songs. Since her days in the acclaimed folk/pop duo the Story, she has penned elegant, literate, and intricate compositions with melodies that linger in the mind. Her lyrics tumble over each other with acrobatic ease, and Brooke sings them with the sort of intimate sincerity that is impossible to fake. Her fifth solo record, BACK IN THE CIRCUS, finds the singer/songwriter as sharp as ever, her relaxed prowess on full display. Playfully pointed lines abound, as on the Beatlesque opening title track, where she notes "I've got holes in my fishnets and holes in my last alibi."
Brooke also proves proficient with other people's tunes, finding hidden corners in familiar surroundings on her elegiac rendering of the Beach Boys' "God Only Knows" and her acoustic reinvention of the Alan Parsons Project hit "Eye in the Sky." She even pulls off a musical coup of sorts by injecting the old James Taylor warhorse "Fire & Rain" with jazzy, slightly electronic undertones, rediscovering its original earthen beauty.