(Maverick/Warner Music)

She’s got new reasons to rage but you oughta know she’s changed

In the period since her last album four years ago, Alanis Morissette went through a messy break-up. So, typically for a performer who has poured her emotional turmoils into her work, many of the songs on this fifth album bristle with the pain and the anger of that time, almost to the point where the self-analytical dissections in tracks like Versions Of Violence and Straitjacket make me feel like an uncomfortable voyeur. But as if to counter that wave of catharsis, there’s the mellower positivity of In Praise Of The Vulnerable Man (ironic, perhaps), the spare, muted tone of Not As We, where her quavering voice is backed only by piano, a sense of regret in Torch, and the near poetic manifesto Citizen Of The Planet given some serious guitar heft. It shows Morissette is not simply focussed on revenge via a record. But what really brings her entangled thoughts to the fore is the co-writing and production of Guy Sigsworth (best known for his work with Bjork and Madonna). Sure, at times she’s overwrought (or just over-writes), but whether intense or introspective, the variety of flavours here don’t let Morissette down.

***˝

BILL HOLDSWORTH

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