*** Steve Wynn

MY MIDNIGHT

(Zero Hour)

Wynn may not have been born in the City, but he makes quintessentially New York music. His lyrics bristle with an acidic, hungover wit, and his melodies hide a little street grime under the sharp, polished fingernails, like what Lou Reed does for a living. Recorded during a five-day jag with Come guitarist Chris Brokaw, bassist Tony Maimone (Pere Ubu), keyboardist Joe McGinty (Psychedelic Furs), and drummer Linda Pitmon (Zuzu's Petals), Wynn's sixth post-Dream Syndicate outing finds him sauntering down the path he began exploring on '97's Sweetness and Light -- an album that sounded like a therapeutic return to daylight after the bummed-out Bowery-blues hues of '96's Melting in the Dark. Piano, brushed drums, and tempered guitar guide many of these tracks, and the production places Wynn's dry crackle of a voice cleanly front-and-center. Still, for every uncharacteristically sunny Bacharachian love song like "Out of This World" there's a creep-show affair like "We've Been Hanging Out" or the bleak nihilism of "Mask of Shame," both of which find Wynn wallowing in his true element. New Yorkers always look better in black.

-- Jonathan Perry

(Steve Wynn headlines T.T. the Bear's Place next Thursday, March 25. Call 492-BEAR.)