Rock - Alanis in wonderland

Reviewed by RUSSELL BAILLIE

ALANIS MORISSETTE

Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie

(Maverick/Reprise)

Here is the sound of Alanis Morissette's follow-up to the near 30 million selling Jagged Little Pill:
Whinge.
Whinge.

A song that sounds quite like Sinead O'Connor with the big funk-rock sound that helped make Pill so easy to swallow.
Whinge.

Yes, stretch that over 18 tracks on a CD-filling 75 minutes and you have an album with a very big sense of self. Self-referential, self-righteous, self-obsessed, self-indulgent ...

There a song called Couch, just in case we miss the fountain of therapyspeak that gives this album probably the highest word count of the 90s. Value for money, but so much for medical confidentiality.

Yes, there are songs about blokes who, presumably, aren't her therapists. In one, Unsent, she addresses each one by name ("Dear Matthew ...Dear Jonathan ...Dear Terrance") and tells us how each relationship has helped her grow as person. It's really a very awful moment but it's not the only one.

In another, Thank U (even the title sounds quite O'Connor-ish) she seemingly mistakes her liner note appreciation list for a lyric.

Sure, there are tunes that will catch ears just as the singles of the far more cohesive Jagged Little Pill did. Like the slow-fused Can't Not, the sunny Californian choruses of So Pure and Joining You. But musically, it's really Jagged Little Pill, a longer prescription. And that only helps this create a far bigger parody of Morissette than the angry, goofy woman she was tagged with last time round.

Flaky is only good if it's occasionally funny. Angry is only good if it doesn't seem an act. She's not funny and she is acting -- and so is in more need of a script editor than a therapist.

However, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie does have one mental health benefit -- how fast you reach for the off button is a test of just how well-adjusted you are. *

PJ HARVEY

Is This Desire?

(Island)

Having vamped up her brand of voodoo rock on her last proper album, the terrific To Bring You My Love, this time PJ Harvey has toned things down and dragged herself back into the shadows.

It makes for an album that, while offering some great moments that remind of her bleak and bluesy power, sounds more like a consolidation of approach rather than the next great PJ Harvey album. Even with the cast of her songs' woman characters -- Angelene, Leah, Catherine, Elise, Joy all pop up along the way -- that suggests a central theme.

Between the chilling acoustic elegance of opener Angelene and the final notes of the gothic blues title track just over 40 minutes later, Harvey and backers swing through quite a mix.

There are nervy rock swaggers (The Sky Lit Up, No Girl So Sweet, A Perfect Day), songs propelled by electronic throb (The Wind, Joy) or foggy crackle and hum (Electric Light) with a pause for effect on one evil torch tune in Catherine.

It all makes for a album a couple of shades darker and on the whole, less gripping than To Bring You My Love.
But even back in the shadows PJ Harvey's voodoo remains an unnerving thrill. * * *

LIZ PHAIR

Whitechocolatespaceegg

(Matador/Capitol)

Playing a song from this on her show recently the usually astute Kim Hill commented that she had thought Phair sounded like yet another Alanis clone until her producer corrected her about their relative career spans.

Yes, Chicago-ite Phair was there first with Exile in Guyville, her attention-getting indie debut which was one of the albums of 1994.

Her fine 1995 follow-up Whip-Smart went largely unnoticed.

This one shows she's continuing undaunted, hasn't lost her songwriting spark, or her ear for a deft and funny turn of phrase. They're all mostly attached to some lovable songs too -- especially on the exuberant powerpop of the early Big Small Man or Johnny Feelgood.

There's songs that are smartly built on conversations with her bartender (Polyester Bride) or her mother (What Makes You Happy), and stuff that's affecting, funny or both. It's all given an neatly understated band-plus backing which leaves Phair's forthright voice centre-frame. With her lyrical frankness and pop sense, it's yet more evidence of a singular, intelligently quirky woman singer-songwriter -- and one who actually knows what "ironic" means. * * * *

--Reviewed by Russell Baillie, Weekend TimeOut, 07/11/98