*** Shelby Lynn

I AM SHELBY LYNN

(Island)

Shelby Lynn's reputation as a country-punk came not from her music -- at least not the Nashville-flavored swing of her 1993 debut -- but from her behavior. She's a natural experimenter with a personal and creative wild streak. That's boldly audible in I Am Shelby Lynn, an album that required a seven-year hiatus, her escape from Nashville, and much soul-searching. Its songs are dark and beautiful, the product of an artist creating her own fusion of country, R&B, and rock that veers toward the fringe. The knotty confusion of "Why Can't You Be?" would sound as right coming out of Tom Waits's gnarled throat as it does under Lynn's honeyed purr 'n' croon. "Your Lies" backtracks to the glory days of Phil Spector's '60s vocal extravaganzas. Songs like "Thought It Would Be Easier" and the razor-guitar-driven "Life Is Bad" poke around in the psyche's black corners, raising thorny existential issues. (Call Shelby the anti-Shania.) This CD has already been hailed as the fully realized emergence of an important artist. If that were true, "Easier" wouldn't have a cookie-cutter R&B backbone, and "Gotta Get Back" would lose the twee harmonica solo that only a studio geek could love. The truth is, Lynn is still her own work-in-progress.

-- Ted Drozdowski