Havoc and Bright Lights

Mostly, though, Morrisette succumbs to her dual predilections for quasi-spirituality and stultifying sappiness. [Oct 2012, p.84]

While it may be a difficult task to get through all 12 psycho-babble-filled tune on havoc, it's not entirely a wash or without merit. Ultimately, if you're not into hearing someone use their artistic expression to vent their frustrations and contemplate fairly uneducated meanderings on the current social state, or you're not struggling with your own identity lacking the mental capacity to understand your surroundings, you need not apply.

By the end you might feel like you've just had your ear bent by a particularly forthright mum outside school gates, but Havoc and Bright Lights is Alanis Morissette's most inviting album in a long, long time. [Sep 2012, p.103]

Her seventh LP brings the mama drama.

Her syntax can look clumsy on paper, almost like she's trying too hard to express sentiments than make statements, but on record her words seem to flow and fit the music perfectly.

Unfortunately, too many of the songs on Havoc lack that specificity and Morissette's inimitable POV. Her best material has always traded in forces of tension and change, but she spends most of the album sounding like she's leading a meditation.