Lost in Space

1	Humpty Dumpty 4:01
2	High on Sunday 51 3:15
3	Lost in Space 3:28
4	This Is How It Goes 3:47
5	Guys Like Me 3:12
6	Pavlov's Bell 4:27
7	Real Bad News 3:53
8	Invisible Ink 4:59
9	Today's the Day 4:42
10	The Moth 3:46
11	It's Not 3:27

Barnes & Noble

Since her early days in Til Tuesday (remember the new wave hit "Voices Carry"?), Aimee Mann has forged a career rich in contrasts: from her bleached hair and deep-set eyes to her velvety voice and bleak lyrics. No wonder her narcotic power-pop songs so aptly shaped the aching 1999 film Magnolia -- an artistic marriage that called attention to Mann's prodigious, but largely unheralded, talents. Magnolia shared a handful of songs with her quietly incendiary 2000 album, Bachelor No. 2, a self-released disc that, in part, indicted the music industry for its failure to promote substance over fluff. The disengaged relationships continue on Lost in Space, which -- amid a subdued backdrop of Mann's melancholy singing and ensnaring melodic hooks -- finds lonely characters stymied by addictions and failing to connect. Yet singing lines as raw as "All the perfect drugs and superheroes wouldn't be enough to bring me back to zero" ("Humpty Dumpty"), Mann sounds lovelier than ever, approaching the sweetness and light of Karen Carpenter. While the grist of Mann's sound remains rooted in Beatlesque melodies and arrangements with '70s rock-pop touches, such as retro-sounding keyboards and edgy guitar solos (courtesy in no small part of her guitarist and producer, Michael Lockwood), she's ditched a few of Bachelor's influences, like Bacharachian production flourishes, in favor of a bluesy touch on "High on Sunday 51" and a subtle string section on "Lost in Space." But no matter the embellishments, Aimee Mann's voice, songs, and words carry a weighty message that tastes sweet as sugar. Lydia Vanderloo

All Music Guide

It is, in a sense, a trick of the times that Lost in Space conveys such a vivid visual quality; thanks to the high profile given to her music on the Magnolia soundtrack, it's now impossible to miss the narrative strength of Mann's writing. The mood throughout this album is autumnal, with filmy keyboard beds and expressive shifts between major and minor enhancing the subdued eloquence of her lyrics. (A major chord at the end of "Guys Like Me" offers an ironic twist on the smug portraiture that precedes it.) Though recorded free of the legal snarls that plagued most of her previous albums, Lost in Space seems to be mainly about alienation and, at least as a metaphor, addiction. The latter point is made clear in "This Is How It Goes," with its assertions that "it's all about drugs, it's all about shame." But it's clear as well when Mann offers to "be your heroine" -- or is it heroin? -- amidst slithering slide guitars and rainy gray textures on "High on Sunday 51," or confesses to seeking salvation where "It's Not." Recorded largely in Ryan Freeland's home studio, some of these songs receive discreet electronic treatments -- moments of abstract noise whose application always enhances the otherwise low-tech arrangements. For all the shadows that stretch across Lost in Space, what lingers in the wake of this music is the realization that Mann remains spectacularly underrated among contemporary songwriters; no one surpasses her as a master of poetic regret, and few albums examine the peculiar beauty of depression with the skill she brings to Lost in Space. Robert Doerschuk

Entertainment Weekly

Call her the most ambitious busker working the charts. (B+) Josh Tyrangiel

Blender

Aimee Mann is the Martha Stewart of misery: She decorates romantic depression and turns it into the most comfortable nest you'd ever want to hang your head in....Misery loves company, we know. Thank God it loves a sinuous melody, too. RJ Smith