For thirteen years, Joan Armatrading has followed an almost annual ritual – she assembles several shrewd musicians and a quality producer to record an album of richly emotional portraits that doesn't circulate beyond her devoted following, despite big-thing predictions, or alter the lingering misconception that she's a "folkie." On her new album, Armatrading makes a bold change – working with a young, obscure band, she's assumed production and lead-guitar duties, at the same time elaborating the melodic quirks and psychic discord in her songwriting. Although the pared, electronic settings on Sleight of Hand are immediately striking, it's the gaunt, sour tone of Armatrading's scenarios that give the album its bite.

In the past, Armatrading has suggested more in one couplet than other singer-songwriters declaimed in a whole song. So it's initially disappointing that the dynamic single "Kind Words (and a Real Good Heart)" explores interpersonal injustice without adding to Elvis Costello's terser "Good manners and bad breath get you nowhere," from "New Lace Sleeves." And "Reach Out" may be the first song she's written that resonates no deeper than its title. Although several other songs are uncharacteristically lacking in depth, they gradually establish an enlightening continuity; the avaricious "Angel Man" reinforces the charred, cautionary advice in "Figure of Speech" ("Watch his lips while he speaks and read his eyes"), and the rumors of war in "Laurel and the Rose" empower the daydream fantasy of "Jesse."

This is Armatrading's least coy album to date, and the blunt, vehement songs cut the deepest. "Russian Roulette" is a rousing, Stonesy rocker sung by a masochist (compare "I Love It When You Call Me Names" from 1983's The Key), who confesses, "I bring myself down by making things up/I imagine you gone." And the abrasive "One More Chance" recapitulates the LP's other grim tales. "My heart, my heart," Armatrading roars, "hear the sound as I fall apart." And she animates the role with some remarkable singing – as on "Angel Man" and "Russian Roulette," she sounds as though the microphone has been lodged between her lungs and her heart. Closer to the serrated work of Lou Reed or John Cale than to Joni Mitchell or Suzanne Vega, Sleight of Hand should help Joan Armatrading shed her folkie image and expand her critical reputation, if not her loyal following. (RS 477)

ROB TANNENBAUM