Aimee Mann, 'The Forgotten Arm'

How typically quirky that by delivering a concept album about a fictitious couple provides Aimee Mann with as engaging and personal an album as she’s ever created.

And how you even manage to release the subject matter in the first place – to wit, a former boxer returns from Vietnam addicted to smack and must endure drab domesticity with his good natured girlfriend – is a worthwhile question. The answer is simple: you put it out on your own label (SuperEgo), and the resulting record is your finest in years. Thankfully leaving behind her rather moribund last album ‘Lost In Space’, Mann’s protagonists of John and Caroline are searching for and running from themselves. The title is a reference to a cunning boxing trick (she’s a fan of the sport) of almost exclusively using one fist during a fight. Thus, you neglect the forgotten arm that ultimately lands the knockout punch. Needless to say, that’s as apt a metaphor for Mann’s career as you’re ever likely to read.

Mann paints the illuminating scenarios - mainly set in Virginia –, which results in “She Really Wants You” being the full on, unashamedly pop classic she probably should have penned ten years ago while “Dear John” and “Clean Up For Christmas” tug at the heartstrings to tremendous effect. Undoubted highlight, and maybe Mann’s musical peak to date, is ‘Goodbye Caroline’. Her voice has never sounded better and resonates with confidence as she belts out the words with gusto (“my favorite faith healer!”) backed by the trademark guitars, drums and piano that we’ve come to associate with this most mercurial of talents. It’s just reward for her loyal fan base, always in her corner, willing her to take on new challenges. Seconds out for the next round…