**** Royal Fingerbowl

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SABO!

(TVT)

This is a remarkably beautiful collection of songs about decrepitude, broken hearts, alcoholism, kidnapping, and lowlifes. The obvious comparison is to Tom Waits's first four albums, which combined a similar blend of jazz, blues, and Tin Pan Alley with a view of existence from the bottom up. The lyrics are every bit as literate and bittersweet, and singer Alex McMurray shares Waits's Brillo vocal cords.

But Royal Fingerbowl take much of their sensibility from the demimonde of their native New Orleans. There's a seedy sense of heart to even their knottiest characters. Plus a spareness to the music that speaks of a culture that doesn't perform any unnecessary movements in the afternoon sun and appreciates all its available ingredients. So numbers like "The Rosy Fingered Dawn" unravel to slowly loping rhythms; emotions like the anger and sadness in "Toby" take nearly a whole performance to build. The wise pinches of organ, horn, reeds, and pedal steel that flesh out the trio's bass/drums/guitars nucleus are similarly tempered. Royal Fingerbowl's idiosyncratic debut probably won't take them to the top of the charts, but it's the kind of music one can take to heart.

-- Ted Drozdowski

(Royal Fingerbowl perform a week from Sunday, October 12, at the Middle East. Call 864-EAST.)