The prospect of an
Aimee Mann concept album concerning an addicted boxer returning from the Vietnam War isn't necessarily enticing, but after the meandering, adrift
Lost in Space, a change of pace of any kind is welcome for the acclaimed, gifted, and increasingly predictable singer/songwriter.
Mann must have sensed this too, since she not only committed herself to a narrative song cycle, but she cut the record live with a new band under the guidance of producer
Joe Henry. The results aren't quite as different as you might expect -- her music is very much in the vein of
Bachelor No. 2, right down to the vague carnivalesque overtones associated with
Jon Brion -- but the project helped focus
Mann both as a writer and a record-maker. The songs on
The Forgotten Arm are sharper, stronger, more memorable than those on
Lost in Space and the performances are robust and lively. As the record progresses, the songs take on a certain samey quality -- a flaw that's not uncommon to
Mann's albums -- but as individual cuts, the songs are quite strong. That is a bit of an oddity for a concept album, but the concept seems like a MacGuffin anyway, a way for her to write some stark songs about addiction and to force discipline upon herself. She had a similar situation with the songs from
Magnolia that spilled onto
Bachelor No. 2 -- when she had to fit her tunes to the requirements of
Paul Thomas Anderson's film, it made for better music. While the music here isn't as good as that on
Bachelor, the strict structure does help give
The Forgotten Arm direction, helping shape it into one of her more consistent albums.