This album is really very pretty.  By 'album' I mean
the actual physical album - the packaging is quite nice
with lots of photos of bodies of water and skylines,
and the CD itself is a nice white, off-white colour.  


The sounds the album makes when it comes into contact
with the little elves who dance in my stereo to make
CDs play are not so pretty.  Although they aren't
ugly, either - they're someplace in the middle.  It's
like when you are having a conversation with a girl
who is sort of pretty and sort of interesting but you
still sort of wish she would go away too because she
is just interesting enough to remind you that there
are many other, more interesting people out there. 


While listening to this, I continually wanted it to
end so that I could put on Amazing Disgrace by the
Posies or My Aim is True by Elvis Costello and hear
what pop really ought to sound like.  Because whatever
other aspirations this CD may have had, it is pop. 
And I don't happen to think pop is a dirty word.  And
this CD isn't a dirty CD.


But it isn't a glittering, bedazzling, wonderful CD
either.  There were parts of 'Open Heart Surgery" that
I got into, and there were some parts of 'All the
Ships at Sea' that were pretty rad, and there were a
few pretty instrumental parts in most of the songs. 
But I wouldn't call these moments of brilliance so
much as I would moments of better-than-adequacy, and
for the most part the album was precisely adequate.


I don't have anything against the album really - if
this CD were a person I would let it come in out of
the rain to use my telephone if its car broke down,
but I wouldn't let it spend the night.