MUSIC: Glimmers of Ecstasy

Beneath the placid surfaces of Sarah McLachlan's songs runs an emotional torrent. As her piano and lonesome guitar sketch folk-rock tunes of elegant simplicity, McLachlan sings vivid tales of love gone wrong, of troubled souls grappling with infatuation, rejection and other extreme conditions of the heart. On Circle, a cut from her gorgeous new album Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, McLachlan captures the fractured hopes of a love affair headed south: "What kind of love is this that keeps me hanging on/ Despite everything it's doing to me?" In Possession she sings of a love that has crossed into obsession: "My body aches...