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Album review: Aimee Mann

By Michael Hamersly McClatchy Newspapers

Aimee Mann

@#%&*! Smilers

Aimee Mann will forever reside in 1980s lore for singing the hit Voices Carry for her band "Til Tuesday. But her true career-defining moment would come more than a decade later when she parlayed a friendship with Magnolia director Paul Thomas Anderson into contributing eight haunting songs to the film's soundtrack, including the Oscar- and Grammy-nominated Save Me. (Anderson was so enamored of Mann's songs that he actually used her lyrics to inspire the film's characters and situations.)

On @#%&*! Smilers, Mann's sixth solo album, she trades stark, pristine songs for a more bluesy approach, while retaining her aching, nasal twang.

Mann also retains her trademark wry, biting view of the world — she's been wounded by life's curve balls and is a master at turning heartache into art. The pleasant country lilt of Looking for Nothing recalls Bonnie Raitt, if she were filled with remorse: ”I got high on the Ferris wheel/ Didn't like the way it made me feel.“ The acoustic guitar, brushes and strings of Phoenix create an entrancing lull, but with lines like, ”You love me like a dollar bill/ You roll me up and trade me in,“ it's far from a lullaby. Same with It's Over, in which pretty melody masks searing observations: ”You sit there in the darkness/ And you make plans but they're hopeless/ And you blame God when you're lonely.“ 31 Today, another smooth, Raitt-like blues number, taps into familiar angst from a star's perspective: ”I thought my life would be better by now/ But it's not and I don't know where to turn.“

But the songs aren't all gloom and doom. The Great Beyond, with Fiona Apple-esque sultry blues, is dripping with empowerment: ”Go, honey, go/ If I were you I would leave this neighborhood/ Away from people who never treat you like you should.“

(Also of note: The closing song, Ballantines, includes the lyric, ”Patrons at the bar in Lexington, Kentucky.“ We're still trying to figure that one out.)

Despite its oddly angry title, @#%&*! Smilers will leave most smiling, albeit wistfully.