IT'S hard to believe this is Jewel's fifth studio album when she's barely made a dent in the British charts.

But this American songbird is apparently huge in her native US of A, selling more than 10 million albums in the last three years.

And the Americans don't just love Jewel for her music, her first volume of poetry stayed on the New York Times Best Sellers list for months.

And she's written all the lyrics on 0304 as well as co-writing the music - her collaborators include Lester Mendez, Jewel's co-producer, famed for his work with Shakira, Santana, and Enrique Iglesias, and Guy Chambers, who has worked with Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue.

Her credentials sound impressive so far but unfortunately there's not much this album has to offer that would have us Brits flocking to the nearest music store.

It toys with different styles like R&B, pop and dance and the best song is the very catchy Intuition but the others aren't distinctive enough to be memorable.

But the funniest thing is Jewel's note to her fans on the album sleeve which says: "I wanted to make a record that was a modern interpretation of big band music. A record that was lyric-driven, like Cole Porter stuff, that also had a lot of swing."

Well the album does contain lyrics but that's about as far as her interpretation goes.

MC