Aimee Mann

Danforth Music Hall, Toronto, April 26, 2017

Mental Illness, plus gags, plus a “a fucking chorus of owls”, equals singer-songwriter gold.

- Jason Anderson

AIMEE Mann makes no bones about the kind of songs she came here to play: “Slow and sad, depressing, possibly even creepy.” However, she tells her audience in Toronto, “i feel that kind of song is a song i’m familiar with.” On the page, her words lose something, just as the humour in Mann’s lyrics may be too caustic without the leavening effect of her warm, wry alto. Yet she delivers the evening’s opening joke with the precision of a seasoned standup, her gold lamé dress adding another unexpected element of Vegas stagecraft to the proceedings. There are many more laughs over the course of a 90-minute set of songs that may return again and again to the key themes in Mann’s songwriting – loneliness, heartbreak, betrayal and disappointment being at the top of the list – yet somehow seem sprightly when presented by such an affable performer. As dark as her songs may be – and they can be awfully dark on Mental Illness, her ninth solo studio album and one of her strongest – there may be a brighter side.