Produced by Nick Lowe on one side and underrated studio genies Ron Nagle and Scott Matthews on the other, Riding with the King offers two views of John Hiatt's flippantly acidic songwriting that don't quite cut it as a whole. But that's not to say they don't make two damn good halves.

After the vicious bite of Hiatt's two fine MCA LPs, Slug Line and Two-Bit Monster, and the Anglophilic density of last year's All of a Sudden, Lowe's casual pub and roll approach – bluesy, strolling rhythms fortified by friendly background harmonies and Paul Carrack's rippling, Booker T.-style organ – is a refreshing change. The breezy, Rockpile-like roll of "The Love That Harms" and the white soul gestures of "Book Lovers" thaw the cynical chill of Hiatt's despair.

Yet the album's flip side is a bit closer to the mark, because Nagle and Matthews's smug pop clarity actually mirrors Hiatt's own acute schizophrenia. Hiatt mixes pity and poisoned metaphors in "Girl on a String" ("Like a shrunken head on a rear view mirror/She rides along in his atmosphere"), while multiinstrumentalist Matthews summons up a chipper party atmosphere with mocking Tex-Mex organ. He also echos the boozy nonchalance of Hiatt's love-gone-sour in "I Don't Even Try" with moaning slide guitar and the perverse tingle of keyboards. Here and elsewhere, Hiatt's emotional jabs are set in stark relief by Nagle and Matthews' Spectoresque production instincts and bold pop polish. An entire album of this would have been very interesting; as it is, Riding with the King is a good two-EP set conveniently pressed onto one disc. (RS 410)

DAVID FRICKE