One nice album.

Formerly half of Two Girls, Meg Hentges returns with an out and rockin' CD

Brompton's Cocktail * Meg Hentges * Robbins Entertainment

One of the major joys of being a music junkie is rediscovering artists who've dropped than ever. As a latter-day member of the greatest queer rock band of the late '80s and early'90s Two Nice Girls, Meg Hentges played a pivotal role in pumping up the guitars for what began as a subversive yet nevertheless musically polite female folk trio. When the expanded Austine-based quartet split up shortly after its recording its crowning achievement Chloe Liked Olivia, and shortly before its record company, Rough Trade, went bust, Hentges recorded a pair of largely ignored independent releases and virtually disappeared.

Suddenly the inventive singer-song-writer has bounced back with a semifamous collaborator, a label with major distribution, and one of the decade's most playful, tuneful, and thoughtful alternative-pop efforts. Brompton's Cocktail was produced by Fountains of Wayne/Ivy member Adam Schlesinger (who also sits in as a musician),: and like similar ,albums by the cutie punks of Imperial Teen, it's blatantly homo and thoroughly mainstream--accessibe, but even more so. It's mad-catchy, and the queerest songs are among the most memorable.

Hentges and her cowriter, bassist Jude O'Nym, have an immediacy to their melodies and an indirect appraoch to lyrics. The music hits you upside your head with a hook while the vocals gently slide you something poetic. The combo falls somewhere between Elliott Smith's oblique introspection and the Cars' bitersweet candy kisses--only louder.

On "God's Lake" Hentges recounts her dream about a strained but surface-happy visit with her family, painting surreal suburban landscapes against brick walls, then dropping in a bizarrely detailed but entirely appropriate account of shopping for shoes. Without coming across as pedantic or Jewel-simple, the song suggests hoe we get lost in pleasant distractions to protect ourselves from the pain of fitting into a world where we're told we don't belong. It's also hilarious and totally rockin.'

Brompton's Cocktail offers 11 other cuts of similar distinction. Hiding out must have given Hentges time to open a solo debut stronger than many artists' greatest-hits collections. Her vocal presence is unassuming but commanding, like a female Lou Reed without the pitch problems, mid its conversational warmth allows her to play musical chairs with arrangements told production. She crashes down on a hard Nivana bench for one track and snuggles into a plush Fleetwood Mac cushion for the next without ever losing her wry identity.

Schlesinger's similar stylistic bent rout more recent radio-accessible experience makes him a perfect accomplice for Hentges and O'Nym, mid the irio achieve a punchy yet nuanced power-pop attack that recalls Fountains of Wayne's big alt-rock hit "Radiation Vibe" and the Oscar-nominated title tune Schlesinger penned for Tom Hanks's That Thing You Do. Hentges's ever-more assertive guitar dances with Schlesinger's keyboards, drums, and studio tricks, and the whole thing sounds simultaneously raw and refined.

The clincher is the opening track, a triumphant rerecording of the originally tentative anthem Hentges and O'Nym first recorded on their own. Although the singer's sexually is implicit throughout, "This Kind Of love" lets you know right off the bat that this is a queer singing about queer affection and its not dark and tortured. As the buzzing synth-warped guitars and sing along refrain insist, it's daring and fun, even good for you. So's this record.

Walters is a pop-music critic for The Advocate.