*** Susan McKeown & the Chanting House

BONES

(1-800-PRIME CD)

Her accent and her imagery are all that's keeping Susan McKeown from reaching an audience beyond the Irish music camp. With her semi-acoustic arrangements, a broad-ranging alto voice that's clear as mountain air, and charming songs of love, pain, and redemption (the basics), she could well become an adult-alternative-radio star. Especially if she keeps writing tunes as catchy as "Snakes/Mná na hÉireann," which recalls 10,000 Maniacs before Natalie Merchant neutered that group and puts a weird -- perhaps supernatural -- spin on the battle between the sexes.

No matter what McKeown is singing about, this album's joy lies in hearing her voice power through the textural eddies created by the well-attuned Chanting House. Michelle Kinney's cello puts a little more warm ache in the mix, and Chris Cunningham's guitar picks a careful minimalist path among the lyric twists. The only bother is that the CD's mellow approach doesn't capture the sharp edges in McKeown's singing, the snap of Joe Trump's galloping drums, or the Beefheartian impulses Cunningham chases -- all keystones of their live performances.

-- Ted Drozdowski