Anne Loree

The second album from the Calgary-based writer of Jann Arden's massive hit "Insensitive" has a prominent social conscience. Fitting more words into a stanza than are meant to be there, the album's first song, "Money at Stake," is a spoken/sung musical poem critiquing capitalism and its frequent offspring: greed. Similar themes pop up throughout the record with environmental diatribes and Cockburn-esque critiques ("Like a Hole") of modern convenience, corporate power and the technology age. While most of the songs approach these subjects with a keen turn of phrase and insight, some, like the flighty "Trippy Hippy Song," are plain silly. Elsewhere on the record, Loree weighs in with some delicate ballads, such as "Passion" or the reflective "My Old Gang."