Jenny Lewis: Acid Tongue (Lost Highway)

Frankly I'm a bit ho-hum about too much of this by the woman who brought us the terrific Rabbit Fur Coat (with the Watson Twins).

When it is good it is very, very good (the eerie alt.folk of Pretty Bird, the fragile Bad Man's World with stabbing cello, the dsriking title track) but then in other places she veers off into alt.rock (The Next Messiah is an ordinary slide guitar blues rock), chipper pop-rock (See Fernando) and the ubiquituous Elvis Costello pops up to quiver through the Tom Petty-styled power-pop of Carpetbaggers.

At its best (the spare piano ballad Godspeed and the quasi-Motown girl group-soul of Trying My Best, and those mentioned) it is excellent but there are too many other songs which drag this back.

And oddly enough a consistent power-pop album sounds well within her grasp - and would be welcome.