Alanis Morissette, Flavors of Entanglement  3 out of 5 3 Alanis
Morissette, Flavors of Entanglement  How ego-shredding must it
be not just to lose your fiance, but then see him engaged to
Scarlett Johansson? Alanis Morissette's break-up with actor Ryan
Reynolds is the subject of her fifth album, and, being
Morissette, she is unstintingly open about how it affected her.
And, as ever, she provokes both compassion and impatience.
However evident her pain is in songs like Tapes ("I am someone
easy to leave/ The one they all run from") and Straitjacket,
it's impossible to feel undiluted sympathy for a writer who
can't express herself without psychobabble. Must she, for
instance, describe taking a break from relationships as "a
respite from the toils of liaison"? Whatever. The upside is that
there is some nifty music here, from Straitjacket's quivering,
Depeche Mode-ish electronic pulse to the Indian percussion that
fuels Citizen of the Planet, to the effervescent Kylie-pop of
Giggling Again for No Reason.  Today's