Aimee Mann: Lost In Space

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * * )

American singer-songwriter Aimee Mann has almost lost her underdog status after the success of her work on the Magnolia soundtrack and its song-related album Bachelor No 2.

But as much as she remains a singer-songwriter apart- adult, literate, wryly humorous, and able to curl the bitterest of lyrics with the sweetest of tunes in a way that can remind of a female answer to Elvis Costello in his prime - Lost in Space is just a little lacklustre by her own high standards.

Maybe, it's the undercurrent of drug songs that makes much of this feel clammy and morbid. "Let me be your heroin" she sings on High on Sunday 51; "cos it's all about drugs/it's all about shame" begins the chorus to This is How It Goes; The Moth is another allusion to junkiedom.

Still, not all the lyrics come on as if they aren't long out of rehab and songs such as the title track, Guys Like Me, Real Bad News and Today's The Day - with Mann's barbed words and soaring tunes - help to remind that Mann remains in the contemporary singer-songwriter A-stream, and not class A.

Label: V2