In art, confession treads a fine line between catharsis and showing off. A subset of current punk bands like Wheatus and Blink 182 utilizes the geek mode to comment on classic macho-rock poses, but since they have nothing original to say (girls ignore you at school? figure it out), geekiness turns out to be just as much of a pose.

Dan Bryk, a singing-songwriting pianist from Ontario, takes geek to another level. He embraces loserdom with such passion that, listening to his new album, "Lovers Leap," you can't decide if what you're wincing at is the poignancy of his confessions or his pathetic belief that singing about these awful episodes will make him feel better. Bryk is a pudgy, post-grunge Portnoy who listened to Randy Newman and understood how bitterness and bad faith could be sexy, even when sung in a voice that has difficulty with whole notes.

Opening with an ode to computer-game creator Mark Turmell and then segueing into an account of Bryk being raped by his piano teacher at the age of 13 ("he didn't have to tell me not to tell"), the album immediately establishes an atmosphere of queasy identification. "I need a chunky girl," he chirps over a melody that would sound at home on Sesame Street, "the kind that's just my size." And while most geek-rockers wear their made-up virginity like a badge, Bryk recounts his ill-starred love life with unsettling candor and insight. "Our hands they are so clumsy and warm," begins the second verse of "I Love You Goodbye," itself clumsy and warm. "They never want to be let go."

Much of this "sniveling, lachrymose" material (as described in "But This Time") would be less than bearable if Bryk weren't such a skilled melodist and a strong pianist. And like Newman, his obvious hero, Bryk understands that you can only give your audience just so much of an unsympathetic narrator before they turn him off: two verse-choruses, a bridge and a quick exit. That's all the pain you need.