Her 'Extraordinary' is anything but

Precocious and prickly. Sullen and self-absorbed. Mercurial and melodramatic. Loved and loathed. Singer-songwriter Fiona Apple has been all of these things, occasionally even at the same time, on the same album. In fact, they are the qualities that either make her a complicated artist worth paying attention to, or -- depending upon one's tolerance for tantrums -- dismissing outright.

Apple's new ''Extraordinary Machine," which comes out today and is her first album in six years, solicited controversy well before its release. The furor revolved around an Internet campaign aimed at lobbying Sony BMG to release Apple's new record, which had been shelved. (Adding to the drama, a Jon Brion-produced version of the album was leaked on the Internet before Apple opted to rerecord the tracks with noted hip-hop producer Mike Elizondo).

The attendant histrionics surrounding ''Machine" make its release somewhat anticlimactic. At 28, Apple is no longer a piano prodigy with a pout and preternaturally baleful voice, but a maturing songwriter who's grown up in public, for better and worse.

''Extraordinary Machine" catches her at neither extreme. It is, at its core, a post-breakup album (Apple's relationship with longtime boyfriend Paul Thomas Anderson ended in 2001) layered with accusations, wounded pride, and defiant testimonials.

From the cabaret piano-pop of the title track (one of two surviving Brion-produced tracks) to the withering ''Parting Gift," the disc is the work of a veteran performer relaxed amid polished settings.

They are perhaps too relaxed, and too polished. Apple's gloomy piano chords both drive and accent her songs, and her voice -- a throaty lower register of smoky grays and cloudy blues -- remains at the forefront of a melange of strings, brass, and keys. But Apple seems somehow desiccated, beset by a kind of vocal languor. Meanwhile, the album's awash in dampened-down atmospheres. One would never guess this is the same Elizondo behind the beats of Dr. Dre, Eminem, and 50 Cent.

As a consequence, even when they swing (modestly), tracks such as ''Better Version of Me" and ''Please Please Please" simply don't sizzle. Occasionally, the rancor simmering inside tracks like ''Red Red Red" or ''Parting Gift" is striking in its earnest elegance. And despite the muddled metaphors of ''Window," Apple's pointed wrath is a bracing jolt of life. But these are all-too-rare glimpses of what can make Apple an extraordinary machine -- albeit one equally prone to breakdowns as brilliance.