Rufus Wainwright's sister (and frequent tourmate and vocal foil) shares with the more famous offspring of Loudon Wainwright and Kate McGarrigle a detached, love-drunk delivery and an electric command of a melody's path of least resistance. Martha Wainwright's engaging, self-titled debut recalls her brother's eponymous first outing; it alternates the grandiose with the intimate without resorting to mere gesture at either end -- and it starts stronger than it finishes. Her writing is more direct but similarly frank. A slurred electric guitar backlights the sexual ignominy of "Ball & Chain," which stubs its toe on Leonard Cohen's great iron bed with lines such as Bend me over the back of the car seat/Take me down to easy street. Elsewhere, with cameos by Rufus and the Band's Garth Hudson, Wainwright emphasizes mood over text, cloaking simple plaints in understated arrangements that put the singer's lemon-custard voice out front.
