Humming by the flowered vine... what a lovely image of contentment Laura Cantrell conjures.

The wistful Southern country singer with her own New York radio show continues to improve, like the wine from that vine, and her third album is a thing of sleepy, vulnerable beauty and grace. Her crystalline voice and meditative songs are steeped in the past, and she can pick a cover as well as she can write herself. 14th Street, Emily Spray's evocation of New York, and Letters, a discarded Lucinda Williams early demo, both blossom in Laura's sunshine. The traditional murder ballad Poor Ellen Smith could not be more alive, and Cantrell's own works, the college reminiscence Khaki & Corduroy, honky-tonk tribute California Rose and haunting Old Downtown, are stitched with perceptive and poignant detail.

Laura Cantrell sounds vintage yet wonderfully fresh, a combination that marked Michelle Shocked's Texas Campfire Tapes debut 19 years ago. The freshness has faded from the Texan cowgirl, but not her pluck and vim and quest for female empowerment. Threesome is her post-divorce trilogy, therapy in 30 songs on three contrasting albums. Don't Ask Don't Tell is a distaff Blood On The Tracks, a sly rock album in the Short Sharp Shocked vein with scores to settle and Cajun spice aplenty. Got No Strings playfully re-invents Disney's To Be A Cat, Bare Necessities and a naughty Spoonful Of Sugar, Western swing style. Less fulfilling is Mexican Standoff, her half-Latin, half-blues shoot-out, too Spanglish and forced despite her own Hispanic roots. Threesome is still sharp, still Shocked, but certainly not short, although each album can be bought on its lonesome.

Updated: 10:50 Thursday, July 07, 2005