Consumer Guide Album

The Raincoats: Looking in the Shadows [Geffen, 1996]
I hate to be schematic, but they ask for it: for the first 10 tracks, the songs alternate in lockstep, Ana Da Silva-Gina Birch and forgettable-remarkable. What puts this comeback over the top is that the last two go Birch-Da Silva remarkable-remarkable--the literal "Love a Loser," which should be a single if only because the infertility fantasy and the old-age fantasy and even the pretty fantasy are a little too remarkable for MTV, and Da Silva's title tune, which summons empathy for a jilted stalker who ends up getting hold of his fantasies. And as always, only at a higher level of instrumental expertise, the band's musical charms are coextensive with its limitations. B+