Patti Scialfa: 23rd Street Lullaby

By GRAHAM REID

(Herald rating: * * * )

It's been a decade since Scialfa's likeable debut but we can forgive her the delay with the follow-up. Being a mother of three, Mrs Springsteen and a guitarist in the E Street Band, probably takes up most of your time.

Being the Boss' wife meant her debut, Rumble Doll, was unfairly passed over by many critics, but those who stopped to listen heard adult pop-rock with its heart in the New York of Dion, Spanish pop and girl groups, but lacquered with lyrics which ached with diary entries of lust and heartbreak.

This doesn't have the same immediacy, and it wasn't smart to put the ordinary Sheryl Crow-like title track up first. But after that Scialfa again nods to the melodic girl-ballads of the early 60s (the confessional You Can't Go Back) and throbbing, melodic pop-rock full of chiming acoustic guitars.

Yes, she sometimes writes in that narrative style familiar from her husband's songbook (Rose) but it's from a woman's perspective so has its own worldview.

On City Boys - with E Street's Nils Lofgren on dobro - she delivers earthy blues in the manner of Bonnie Raitt; she oozes sex and sensuality on Love (Stand Up); explores the mythic when we fall from grace (Stumbling to Bethlehem); and there's a back-country feel on Each Other's Medicine.

Of course, there's a stellar supporting cast (her husband on three tracks, producer Steve Jordan, guitarist Marc Ribot and Larry Campbell, bassist Willie Weeks), but who wouldn't call them if they had the chance?

The Rumble Doll debut is still the one (if you can find it), but here is another journal of songs from someone who, at 50, seems in no hurry to create a vast catalogue.

Label: Sony