Consumer Guide Album

Amy Allison: Sad Girl [Diesel Only, 2001]
Mose's daughter grew up listening to Schoenberg on Long Island and sings with the piercing twang of a less urbane Victoria Williams. She writes what seem to be country songs with the same stylized simplicity her dad favors in blues, but the country part is just aura, a way to convince you the singer is as unsophisticated as you think her lyrics are until you think some more. Only the rowdy "Shadow of a Man" and the cheatin' "Sad State of Affairs" come equipped with Nashville markers. The rest are just well-turned songs of the heart. Two illustrate the title all too well, but the best make something of it, especially "One Thing in Mind," about what every mother tells every daughter men want, with consequences. A-