[music] CASIOTONE FOR THE PAINFULLY ALONE - Etiquette (Tomlab)

Owen Ashworth's voice always has the inhuman sniveling quality of someone who's about to start weeping, even though mostly he deadpans his lyrics. This is creepy. It also makes him sound like Fozzie The Bear doing a Moby impression.

Ashworth's new fancy production does him some good, though don't misunderstand-- the arrangements aren't any fancier; CFTPA is still only him and things that beep, with occasional guest vocals. The good songs (this time around we get four or five) are so intimate and cutting that the bad songs feel like a betrayal instead of just a disappointment.

Every sad lo-fi musician has been accused of putting style over substance at some point, but Ashworth OUGHT to be immune. He needs surprisingly few lines to lay out one of his stories, and he would have to sell another 100,000 copies per record to accumulate fans that found his voice annoying rather than expressive. Either he's not even trying, or he doesn't know his own strengths. [Available March 8. An EP, already out, contains the best album track and a decent rendition of Prince's "When U Were Mine", rapidly becoming an indiepop standard.]