Have You Fed the Fish? (2002)

Damon Gough's third album is the sound of a turtle emerging from its shell. Unlike his About a Boy soundtrack, Fish? is jaunty and sonically expansive, even with lyrics that are alternately wry (''It moves me to tears/Like a horror film'') and rueful (the way he mourns both a relationship and his fave deceased rockers in the exquisite ''You Were Right''). The abnormal-for-him buoyancy wears thin, but Gough ultimately outpaces most of his U.K. sensitive-soul peers.