Album Review: Aimee Mann's @#%&*! Smilers on Super Ego Records

The music of Aimee Mann conjures soft summer Sundays, lounging in a easy chair, thinking of a lover I once had (and writing a song about it). Remember that love that you let get away and remember the song you wrote about it? Remember that time you took that songwriting class about songwriting and they taught you about verses and choruses and hooks and chords? Maybe you could write a song with all that information.

Mann has always appeared materialized as a stereotypic 'songwriter' (What do you do for a living? Songwriter.) in the vein of 60's and 70's folk-revivalists, playing coffee shops and hippie-hangouts for a nominal fee and maybe some vegan cookies as payment.

There is a "Songwriter for people who write songs" style, and Aimee Mann has once again captured it. @#%&*! Smilers tries to provide those same classic songwriting-style songs while attempting to expand into new variations without thinking too much outside the box.

There's a definite female-bonding side to this album, with songs such as "Stranger Into Starman", with echoing chamber-orchestra styling, and Carly Simon-esque "Medicine Wheel", many fans will appreciate the void/presence of emotion, as well as the deep connection to a cool, free and easily gloomy emotional vibe. This album is the darker of the pastel colors - with hints of chamomile, lavender, sandalwood, and mint.

It would be hard to say that @#%&*! Smilers is not sonically reminiscent of 2005's The Forgotten Arm, the interplay between tedium and skillful pop changes remains the same. Ah, mild hot sauce, please.

The songs are the typically acutely-constructed folk/chamberpop, appropriate for a quiet evening party or a well-dressed cocktail with friends in a quiet but trendy restaurant. It's not exactly dull but it's not the Jock Jam. You may want to listen to something a bit more high-energy to clean out your aural synapses.

It's almost as if Mann is shooting for the background music of an episode of "One Tree Hill" or "Gossip Girl". You can almost see the emotional impact this music would make if there were a terse dialogue between two characters. Finally Jack tells Emily about his ex-wife while they discuss the events drinking chai tea. Emily finally tells Jack about the secret diary she's been keeping...over a cup of wine in a modestly-priced Thai restaurant.

It's music for adults, most definitely. Or, at least people who consider themselves adults.

Not all the songs are emotional anticlimaxes, "Stranger Into Starman" and "Ballantines" shine as an energetic (ahem.) jazz ballad to rival high-floating Broadway-fare. (These songs would go great in a fabric-softener commercial!)

If there is a fault to @#%&*! Smilers, it's that is does not take enough risks; Mann seems to replace risk-taking with as much emotional honesty as she can muster, and strains for songwriting (as well as "songwriting") maturity.

Aimee Mann's @#%&*! Smilers is available on Superego Records