Luckyday

If Janet Klein brandished an accordion instead of a ukulele and moved her fascination with pre-rock singing styles to the '40s from the '20s, she and Rachelle Garniez would have much in common. A singer/songwriter with an ironic but never campy sensibility, Garniez has shown remarkable growth over the course of her career. Her third album, Luckyday, continues that trend. Opening with the sparse "Magic Time," on which her funereal accordion seems to mimic the mournful phrasing of a New Orleans second-line band, and continuing through an impressively varied collection of ten original songs, Luckyday has a somewhat downcast quality even on the more upbeat tracks. The album isn't entirely faultless; although it has a terrific, uncharacteristically rock-influenced chorus, the closing "The Last Thing I Ever Wanted" loses points for Garniez's overmannered singing: in the first verse, she sounds like Lene Lovich imitating Louis Armstrong. However, enough of the album, including the countrified torch song "Red Roses" (which is crying out for a Norah Jones cover, if only for its positive effect on Garniez's bank account) and the moody, blues-tinged title track, is on the plus side of the ledger to make Luckyday an album that any fan of Rickie Lee Jones, John Southworth, k.d. lang, or the Lullaby Baxter Trio will be smitten with.