If Lou Reed hadn't already copped the title, James McMurtry could have called his second album Magic and Loss. The magic is in his lyrics. McMurtry seems to have inherited a hawk's eye for detail from his dad, novelist and screenwriter Larry McMurtry. In "Storekeeper," the vanity of the greedy rich reflects as clearly in the shine on a shop owner's shoes as in the derision he aims at his impoverished customers – barefoot people expected to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. In the title track, he pierces the false security and smugness of suburbia with a flash of spiked fences hemming manicured lawns.

And the loss? Nearly everyone who populates McMurtry's Candyland is searching for direction, from the fading old man in "Hands Like Rain," who looks to the sky for soothing redemption, to the high-school hero of "Where's Johnny," whose promise crumbles beneath the weight of the world.

John Mellencamp produced McMurtry's first album, Too Long in the Wasteland (1989), and Candyland finds McMurtry still working in Mellencamp's camp. The album was cut at Mellencamp's Belmont Mall Studios, with Mellencamp band guitarist Michael Wanchic producing most tracks, and drummer Kenny Aronoff, guitarist Dave Grissom and other Indiana stalwarts provide the same fat-snare, big-guitar sound that defines their boss's heartland rock.

With his dusty voice and limited range, McMurtry needs to vary his laconic delivery to ensure that his singing doesn't fade to gray after a half-dozen songs. And ultimately, he will need to wriggle out from under Mellencamp's shadow to find a sound as distinctive as his songwriting. (RS 639)

TED DROZDOWSKI