*** Mary Chapin Carpenter

A PLACE IN THE WORLD

(Columbia Nashville)

Carpenter's follow-up to 1994's Stones in the Road is in many ways a more somber release. The lyrical maturity and eclectic musical styles on A Place in the World combine to address the themes of belonging and the need to feel understood. Carpenter paints pictures with strokes of emotional honesty and confessional nuance -- enough to put her among the best singer-songwriters of any genre. "Hero in Your Own Hometown" conveys the pathos of lost dreams and dashed expectations: "Everything seems so clear/When you're looking back at such a distance/When the road not taken disappears/Into the path of least resistance."

Singers Shawn Colvin and Kim Richey join Carpenter on the giddy, radio-friendly "I Want To Be Your Girlfriend." Jon Carroll's accordion breezes through the lighthearted "What If We Went to Italy," using a vacation as a focal point in learning how to love without limits. Although Carpenter's music has always defied pigeonholing, there's been nothing to foreshadow the elegant, beautiful "Sudden Gift of Fate," which evokes Joni Mitchell's Court and Spark era, replete with a sublime instrumental fadeout. This is an album full of such pleasant surprises.

-- David Gérard