The spooky, bleached-out cover photo tells its own story - Annie Lennox has been through the mill. With a messy divorce behind her, the former Eurythmics singer has been left bruised, battered and with an awful lot of angst to get off her chest. As a result, Bare contains what are probably the most personal songs of her career, a series of solemn reproaches to her former husband that are often deeply uncomfortable to listen to. This soul-baring attitude is, it has to be said, very much a mixed blessing. Lennox is still a fiercely articulate songwriter, and her voice is as tough and soulful as ever - but she seems to have a lot of her old zest and the mood of unrelenting bitterness is often a little hard to take. Stylistically, meanwhile, she sounds firmly stuck in the past, relying heavily on dated 80s synth-pop and mid-tempo arrangements that border dangerously on muzak. A few striking moments aside, Bare is ultimately an unrewarding experience that ends up drowning in its own self-pity.
