@#%&*! Smilers [CD]

Another excellent album from Aimee, and possibly her best since the almost faultless Bachelor No.2, with a little more richness than Lost In Space and a slightly stronger set of songs than The Forgotten Arm.

She has a style and sound of her own, and that's no bad thing - she sticks to what she does best, and doesn't do anything too experimental, although there are different flourishes to the production on each album, such as the bustling brass on Borrowing Time.

But ultimately it's the timeless quality of special melodies combined with intelligent, story-telling lyrics that make her music so rich and rewarding. Hard to pick out any favourites as it works exceptionally well as an album with no filler, although It's Over, Pheonix and True Believer are up there with the best songs she has written.

Aimee Mann is one of those artists who quietly produces songs of real quality without really troubling the press or being lauded as the next so-and-so. Even providing the soundtrack for P T Anderson's mammoth movie Magnolia wasn't enough to make her more widely known over in the UK. Even I, who had enjoyed her work, had let her fall off my radar recently, only to find that her latest is another well crafted collection of West Coast melancholia; it's title, with deleted expletive, should make it clear how she feels about those with a sunny disposition (and I'm guessing there's a fair few of those in LA).

The album opens with the familiar sounding Freeway, containing everything you might expect; male backing, a catchy tune and chorus, which makes the next track, Stranger into Starman, a bit of a shock. Just piano and her voice sounding better than ever before a simple arrangement fleshes out this tiny track. Lovely. Mann's voice for those that haven't heard it is like a combination of Karen Carpenter and Chrissie Hynde, deep and rich and surprisingly sweet given the bitter tang to some of her lyrics. A song like Phoenix is a good example, with its lovely string accompaniment even whilst she sings about leaving her lover, telling us 'I know love doesn't change a thing'. 31 Today is another track typical of her outlook ' I thought my life would be different somehow/I thought my life would be better by now/But it's not, and I don't know where to turn'.

It's Over is the album's big number, with a far more optimistic outlook, encouragement to make the most of life, ' cos everything's beautiful, every day's a holiday'. There are some clear musical influences; Borrowing Time, as another reviewer has pointed out, has clear echoes of Iggy Pop's Passenger, Little Tornado is very Simon and Garfunkel and True Believer is imbued with the spirit of Elliot Smith. All in all it makes for very pleasant listening but I'm not sure that this album is going to get her any closer to being a household name on this side of the pond.

This is another piece of art for your ears from Aimee. A very rich sound (without using electric guitars) for this album with a live feel to the recording. The whole album is outstanding, the songs complimenting and reflecting on one another.

If you liked any of her past works you should definately pick this up, it's another of those albums where you wish you could just travel along with the protagonists of her songs. Nobody else making music is so interesting or does it so interestingly.