Former Throwing Muse and Breeder member and leader of Belly,

Tanya

Donelly wanders into the world of the solo artist with the release of

Lovesongs for Underdogs.

It's only a few years since Belly found a niche on the alternative

rock

landscape, thanks to singer/guitarist/songwriter Donelly, whose stunning

voice

effortlessly added depth to their catchy guitar tunes. But following

the

band's "amicable" split, she has decided to go it alone, issuing

Lovesongs as a statement of her musical independence.

It's a statement more earnest than rebellious though, somewhat

unexpected

from a woman considered a pioneer in alternative rock. Then

again, maybe the

album title should've tipped me off that this is a kinder, gentler

Tanya Donelly.

Thing is, she skates awfully close to being too gentle, too pretty for

my

taste. At times, I worried she might follow in the footsteps of

someone

such as Natalie Merchant -- losing her punch after ditching her

band.

It's clear, though, that Donelly hasn't totally lost her rough edge, nor

her

knack for spicing up sensible pop tunes with quirky lyrics and a

textured

vocal delivery. She's on familiar ground with gritty songs such as

"Breathe

Around You" and "Bum," with its cathartic chorus. On "Landspeed

Song,"

energetic tempo changes and an unpredictable melody beautifully

complicate

her sultry, off-cadence singing. "I've suffered all the slings and

arrows/ I

know where it hurts," she candidly admits, but responds later with

the gutsy

refrain "Wide awake and sleepwalking/ Don't you want me? Don't

you?"

And again on "Pretty Deep," which has already crept into radio

playlists, her

delicate singing belies a hard-won cosmopolitan savvy revealed in

lyrics such

as "Everything I ever learned is wrong, so wrong, so wrong."

Donelly's

characteristic soft, lilting soprano unleashes a soulful, harder

chorus

backed by a crescendo of guitars and drums.

But on other songs, she dons a deliberate seriousness that pushes

her over

the edge into melodrama and lands her lyrics in a pool of vapid

metaphors.

On "Mysteries of the Unexplained," she begins with the obvious "I

heard a

song/ I heard the saddest song, on W-S-U-K." It's a song of

disappointment

and disillusionment that has her crooning "All our heroes are

whores" with

all the importance a line such as that requires. But she loses me in

her

"tinkertoy world" where "Sometimes it rains fish from the sky/ And

the

statues all start to cry/ And someone writes another beautiful song."

There's a forced emotion on songs such as "Acrobat" and

"Clipped." Donelly's

"doo doos" and "whoop whoops" -- even an "ooh lah lah" on

"Lantern" -- betray

a lack of substance, despite efforts to bulk them up with grungy

licks,

feedback-laden guitar solos and lavish string arrangements. She's

much more

successful when she doesn't impose a mood but lets it happen

naturally, as on

the folksy, bittersweet "Goat Girl." Her acoustic strumming,

melodious

harmonies and deceptively lighthearted lyrics ("Thinking goatish

thoughts/

Dreaming goatish dreams/ Diggin' up tin cans/ Chewin' on your

sleeve")

offer more depth of feeling than she can possibly manufacture on

"Acrobat"

with somber lyrics and singing that's a little too reminiscent

of Kate Bush.

Whatever freedoms she's gained by going solo, Donelly's in

danger of losing

some of them trying to conform to a conventional model of a

singer-songwriter. While some of her Lovesongs unmistakably

showcase the

talents and instincts that got her this far, others reign in her wiles

that

led to her most intriguing performances, such as Belly's delightfully

cryptic

"Feed the Tree"; perhaps she wanted it that way.

But I must admit I liked it better when she was tough enough to ride

her bike

down the stairs.