About a Boy; Alfie

A Word in Your Ear Alfie (XL) Maybe the best thing you can say about an album of songs written for a movie is that it doesn't sound like a soundtrack, that it holds together as a piece of art on its own. Unfortunately, that's not the case with the new effort from the talented but sometimes lazy British superstar Badly Drawn Boy.

The song list for About a Boy would lead you to believe there are 16 songs on this record. Technically this is true. But nearly half of the album (a full seven tracks) is made up of the sort of self-consciously pretty mood music, heavy on the strings, designed to fill the onscreen blanks. On those too rare occasions when Boy (Damon Gough) decides actually to sing, the results are strong, if sometimes mixed. "Something to Talk About" is an affecting confessional at heart?"You know I'm shallow/Callin' out for extra help"?but the insistence on working the title of the film (based on a Nick Hornby novel) into the lyrics is just annoying.

With help from a strong group of players, including drummer and sometime REM and Beck sideman Joey Waronker, the album has several nice moments. The midtempo "Silent Sigh" benefits from Gough's breathy, start-stop delivery. "A Minor Incident," which lays Gough's understated vocal turn on top of just an acoustic guitar and harmonica, could easily have been a maudlin tearjerker ("You always were the one to make us stand out in a crowd/Though every once upon a while your head was in the cloud"). Instead, it's a bittersweet gem.

After a brilliant 2000 album?The Hour of Bewilderbeast was one of the most promising debuts in years?there's no reason to expect anything short of a stellar career for Gough. But About a Boy feels like an EP with some padding thrown in to justify its existence as a heavily promoted move tie-in. There's too much prettiness here, too many evocative orchestral arrangements. It's a record that's just a little too willing to fulfill all that was expected of it.

And then there's Alfie. Two years after the band played on Bewilderbeast?and just months after its well-received If You Happy With You Need Do Nothing?the Brit band has released A Word in Your Ear. Like Gough, Alfie is into the pretty melodies and the sweet songs. The title track is only slightly ballsier than Belle & Sebastian, if not quite as plaintive. Frontman Lee Gorton seems torn about whether or not to let his lyrics be heard, and as drummer Sean Kelly taps along almost silently Ian Smith strums his guitar as if he's afraid of waking a housemate. This is not bad, just very quiet.

Things pick up, and by midway through its 10 songs this record becomes a lot of fun. "Hey man, that's the shit," Gorton half-raps, half-sings at the start of "The Reverse Midas Touch." "It's the Alfie shit, you know, man." A minute later he adds, "I had the sunlight up my sleeve/Like an international art thief." Not sure what that means, but it sounds very cool with Gorton's laconic delivery. The track meanders slowly along, powered to shimmery refrains by Sam Morris' insistent bass.

There are several other keepers here. With its clangy guitar, "Summer Lanes" is reminiscent of early Radiohead, and "Halfway Home" is a muted, winsome delight. With almost no hype, the guys in Alfie have made a more honest, if less catchy, record than their more famous colleague. Who cares if a lot fewer people will hear it?