Whether you found her inspiring or embarrassing, there was no mistaking the impact Alanis Morissette made with her breakthrough 1995 album Jagged Little Pill. But that was then and this is now and these days Alanis is less interested in fiery rock diatribes against former lovers than in calm, confessional meditations on the whole relationship game. Hence Under Rug Swept, Alanis's most considered, low-key and in many ways downright soporific album to date. Over the course of 11 wordy, mid-tempo tracks the kooky Canadian gives her pop-psychology musings full rein, listing the qualities she wants in a lover and gently mocking the defects she finds in the men around her. This is fine as far as it goes, but musically it's all rather dull and you can't help yearning for just a hint of her old, angry rhetoric to break the monotony. If she goes on like this, Morissette risks becoming the one thing she never was in the past - boring.
