This is not a solo album," Maria McKee declares in the liner notes of the second album to appear under her name. Actually, it's more like a Lone Justice record. While on her debut four years ago, McKee seemed a bit lost among an assortment of hired hands, this time she's back among four-fifths of her old group, circa 1985.

Now, as back then, McKee possesses a mighty voice, a bluesy belt that puts her in Janis Joplin territory. But Joplin's genius was restraint. McKee charges through most of this album in full-throttle overdrive. Her energy is admirable but exhausting. Too often the album bogs down in wretched vocal excess.

There are a few blessed exceptions. McKee brings it down low for her own affecting "Only Once," which might have drifted in from the Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo. No surprise, then, that McKee also shares three musicians and a producer with the Jayhawks, who've made a career of earnestly updating the Byrds-Burritos legacy. Two Jayhawks wrote "Precious Time," the other intimate delight of this collection.

As a songwriter, McKee is more consistent than she has been, often with help from former Patti Smith Group keyboardist Bruce Brody, who's stuck by her side through four albums. Her rueful "My Girlhood Among the Outlaws" looks back on the Lone Justice days, while the title track closes the album with a hook so effective it's nearly irritating. McKee's over-the-top singing pushes the song into the classic rock-anthem realm.

When it comes to choosing and interpreting material, McKee strikes home with a riotous cover of Van Morrison's "The Way Young Lovers Do." Reinventing Astral Weeks takes guts, but McKee pulls it off in a heady dose of horns, sweat and sincerity – and a little help from her friends. (RS 666)

WIF STENGER