She's more likely to hurt your feelings

Martha Wainwright

I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings Too (Zoe)

ESSENTIAL "So Many Friends"

Pitched somewhere between the earthy sob of Emmylou Harris and the ethereal histrionics of Kate Bush, Martha Wainwright has one dramatic set of pipes. On her second album, Wainwright occasionally overshoots in trying to write songs that rise to heights of the sound she can produce, but she's rarely boring. She excoriates ex-lovers in settings both deceptively cheery (the folky "Bleeding All Over You") and nearly gothic (the bedraggled waltz of "Tower Song"). Listening to her spill out her romantic anguish in various poison-tipped ways - cruelty, grasping desperation, self-delusion - can be discomfiting as she teeters on the edge of melodrama. But Wainwright also knows how to have a good time. Just as you've had your fill of clever and acidic couplets, Wainwright bursts into a merry version of Pink Floyd's trippy pop delight "See Emily Play" and closes with a perversely jaunty take on the Eurythmics simpatico "Love Is a Stranger." Famous fans like Pete Townshend and Garth Hudson lend a hand in ways that nicely serve the songs. Although Wainwright has been overshadowed on the lowest branch of the family tree by dad Loudon, mom Kate McGarrigle, and big brother Rufus, who appears here, the messy, melodic, and ambitious "Feelings" offers further proof of her distinct talents. [Sarah Rodman]