Music: {allcanada} Listen Up spotlight: Alanis Morissette still wreaks 'Havoc'

Monday, August 27, 2012

{allcanada} Listen Up spotlight: Alanis Morissette still wreaks 'Havoc'

Alanis Morissette, Havoc and Bright Lights (**½ out of four)

Listening to Alanis Morissette's songs, you can feel as if you're either eavesdropping on an intense therapy session or attending an especially gooey self-help seminar. Of course, it's precisely her penchant for oversharing her thoughts and feelings that has endeared the Canadian troubadour to many fans.

Since 2008's post-breakup chronicle Flavors Of Entanglement, Morissette has married and had a child, and there are signs of domestic contentment here. But she has lost none of the fire and bombast that have distinguished what she calls her ongoing "conversation about my and our humanity."

Driving, electronically enchanced tunes such as Woman Down and Celebrity take on a misogynist, fame-obsessed culture, while the ballad Havoc addresses addiction in a more gently touchy-feely fashion.

Trying to accommodate her florid word choices, Morissette often emphasizes the wrong syllables; though lyrics such as "I am a tattooed sexy dancing monkey… hoping my persona ingratiates me" wouldn't flow trippingly anyway. Morissette fares best when she keeps things simple, as on 'Til You, a tender ode to her husband.

It's nice to know that the girl whose rage fueled one of the biggest hits of the past 20 years finally found her bliss.

>> Download:'Til You, Lens