Amy Rigby: Middlescence

Amy Rigby's 1996 solo debut, Diary Of A Mod Housewife, was one of those records that came out of nowhere and kicked you in the ass. With that album, the former member of The Shams unleashed all her feelings about middle age, marriage, and motherhood, revealing a sharp sense of humor and an even sharper sense of songwriting. Middlescence finds Rigby again teaming with Mod producer (and former Cars guitarist) Elliot Easton, and, as the title (defined on the packaging as the "time of life between arrested development and hard-won maturity") might indicate, the subject matter is very much in line with that of her debut. If Housewife found Rigby exploding out of her suffocating life, Middlescence finds her further harnessing that sense of domestic frustration to fuel her deceptively bouncy songs, which once again veer from girl-group stomp to Beatles pop to Dylan-esque folk. Rigby, it seems, will only be dragged into adulthood kicking and screaming, and not without first letting loose with some droll, self-effacing lyrics. Like Liz Phair crossed with Lucinda Williams, Rigby is a real fighter, and growing older is the battle of her life. "The Summer Of My Wasted Youth" recalls sitting around the house taking drugs and listening to country music, and Rigby's voice reveals just how much she misses those carefree days. "Raising The Bar" rails against the trials of middle age, while both "20th Anniversary" and "Invisible" note how guys who once fawned over her now look right through her. If all this sounds depressing, it isn't. Rigby is too smart and talented to wallow in self-pity, so she uses these tales of personal setbacks for target practice, tossing therapeutic barbs at herself in some cross between therapy and acupuncture.