**1/2 Marcy Playground

SHAPESHIFTER

(Capitol)

On his band's second album, Marcy Playground singer John Wozniak can't decide who he'd rather sing to: teenagers or adults. At first listen, Shapeshifter seems strictly for kids. Wozniak stays home sick from school on the leadoff track, "It's Saturday," eating "foie gras on some hot chicken soup" and yodeling up a storm while his band throw a grunge tantrum. On "Secret Squirrel" and "Pigeon Farm," he even garbles nonsense about animals like that guy from Presidents of the United States of America used to.

But the rest of the album is full of melancholy that brings to mind a grumpy Neil Young. "America" is a predictable, acoustic-strummed meditation on small-town life that's at least a bit more profound than "Sex and Candy," Marcy Playground's breakthrough single from a few years back. And with its musty title and Crazy Horse guitars, "Rebel Sodville" sounds more like Uncle Tupelo than any MTV one-hit wonder has a right to. So what will it be, Teen Beat or No Depression? Only "Wave Motion Gun" will please both camps. It's got that whisper-to-a-scream grunge catharsis that kids love and poignant and decidedly grown-up lyrics about drug abuse.

-- Sean Richardson

(Marcy Playground play Bill's Bar next Thursday, November 4, with Blinker the Star. Call 421-9678.)