Main review and capsule reviews for the week of Aug. 28:
Alanis Morissette
Havoc and Bright Lights
Universal Music
Conventional wisdom holds that domestic contentment is the enemy of great songs. Important and resonant records, some say, come from conflict, internal or external.
There are those who say, however, that love songs are the backbone of all memorable popular music and wonder where this whole conflict rule comes from.
On her first album in four years, Alanis Morissette, two years married and the mother of one-year-old Ever, skirts the issue. Songs like the soaring synth-pop thank-you note Empathy and the love ballad Til You ? the latter written for her husband, rapper Mario ?MC Souleye? Treadway ? ooze with homebody happiness.
Others, like the percussive pop-cultural indictment Celebrity and the psychedelic, Eastern-flavoured Lens, which confronts religious and political conflict, keep a jaundiced eye on the world outside Morissette?s living room, where the album was recorded so she could have Ever nearby throughout the process.
Either way, however, Havoc and Bright Lights ultimately falls a bit short of delivering the great-songs part of the equation.
The first half offers the possibility that this might be a truly superior pop album. The opening track, Guardian, shows Morissette easily retaining her crown as Queen of the Big Soaring Chorus. The sweet, bubbling keyboard backing in the verses collides with slicked-up Sweet Jane guitar chords in the chorus, and it?s all just too hard to resist.
The winning combo illustrates the respective contributions of co-producers Guy Sigsworth, who brings the synth textures, and Joe Chiccarelli, who has worked with the Strokes and the White Stripes and knows his way around power chords.
While the next few songs keep the momentum going ? the lumbering beat of the anti-misogyny challenge Woman Down recalls David Bowie?s Fashion, and it really works ? the disc seems to run out of steam at about the halfway mark. By the time the unexceptional rockers Spiral and Numb turn up, the rush of harmonies that introduce the hooks have become ? as they always do ? an irritating formula. To make matters worse, the melodies fall by the wayside at about the same time.
Edge of Evolution closes the album with musings about the evolution of consciousness. Its main virtue is that it?s a shorter time investment than reading an Eckhart Tolle book. But as Morissette sings ?We?re ready to push envelopes into full-blown consciousness? in one of the album?s less memorable refrains, it?s only too clear that, musically at least, no envelopes have been pushed at all.
Rating: 3 stars out of 5.
Podworthy: Guardian
Alanis Morissette performs Oct. 16 at Metropolis, 59 Ste. Catherine St. E. Tickets cost $59.50. Call 514-790-1245 or go to admission.com.
bperusse@montrealgazette.com
Twitter: @bernieperusse
Capsule reviews
Divine Fits
Lawless soundtrack
Swans
Iggy Pop
The Beatdown
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