Neneh Cherry’s first proper album in 15 years finds her in persuasive voice, taking on a stack of challenging covers, backed by a Scandinavian trio that sounds like an avant-jazz version of Morphine. The problem is that most of those covers—from the Stooges to MF Doom to Martina Topley-Bird to Cherry's stepfather Don Cherry — are high on cool attitude and low on melody. Her own opener, “Cashback,” is the most appealing thing here by far.
