I SHOULD tell you every song title starts with the letter 'i', hence the album title.

Introspective it is not. Instead, Stephin Merritt - he even has an 'i' in his first name and surname, where others would pop an 'e' - is a barbed barometer of love in all its universal beauty, betrayal, bitching and lies.

Intimacy, however, is leant to these 14 reflections by i being his most personal since his 1990 debut, Distant Plastic Trees. In the manner of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and Los Angeles ex-pat Morrissey, imagery is bittersweet and droll.

Instinctive, impulsive melodies meet melancholia and melodrama in gay tales of arch commentary and frank observation. Instrumentation differs from his infamous 1999 magnum opus, 69 Love Songs.

Introducing a hands-held policy, he bans synthesisers in favour of cello, piano, ukelele and banjo to wrap around his lugubrious crooning, and his quartet's chamber pop is even more elegant than Neil Hannon's revitalised Divine Comedy. 'i' is irresistible.

Updated: 08:40 Thursday, June 03, 2004