Lucinda Williams: West

As frontman for the widely acclaimed San Francisco band American Music Club, Mark Eitzel made seven albums full of dense, depressing, literate, darkly beautiful songs; when the band broke up in 1994, he embarked upon a solo career so he could follow his vision of writing more dense, depressing, literate, darkly beautiful songs. West, his second solo album, is full of them, and full of wry observations and references to stuff like Burl Ives, plastic dinosaurs and drinking screwdrivers at bar time. All but one song (Eitzel's tour de force "Live Or Die") was written and produced by Eitzel and R.E.M.'s Peter Buck, and the result is a characteristically dark record that benefits from accessible, accomplished arrangements. (It helps that Eitzel's backing players include Young Fresh Fellows' Scott McCaughey and several members of the all-star band Tuatara.) Eitzel isn't afraid to unveil some subdued pop hooks, either: "Free Of Harm" recalls traces of Counting Crows and The Lemonheads, while still maintaining the smartly realized darkness of his best material. (That's saying nothing of the single, "In Your Life," which is downright jangly, or "Move Myself Ahead," which flat-out rocks.) Fans should swallow West whole, while the uninitiated should have no trouble finding something they like in Eitzel's mopey charms.