*** BRUCE HORNSBY & THE RANGE “A Night on the Town” <i> RCA</i> :<i> Albums are rated from five stars (a classic) to one star (poor). </i>

This Range has expanded. Hornsby and company could have settled for being New Age gods, given the plaintive attractiveness of his lyrical piano turns. Instead, on this third effort they go for something altogether tougher, still riddled with piano solos but not so much based around those lovely, lilting riffs, something with muscle and rhythm.

For this, give some credit also to co-producer Don Gehman (of John Mellencamp fame), as well as featured guests Jerry Garcia on guitar and Shawn Colvin on vocals, who add considerably and soulfully to several of the tracks therein.

The rollicking feel on some tracks is such that you might momentarily mistake it for Little Feat, not George Winston. Feat gumbo is distinguished from Hornsby gumption, of course, by Hornsby’s inevitably sober--but playful--lyric approach and his not-so-inevitable use of electronic percussion on even some of the bouncier Southern-fried numbers. (Perhaps Hornsby feels on a roll after co-creating Don Henley’s “The End of the Innocence,” which clicked with a similarly incongruous click track.)

As writers, Bruce and his brother John have only improved. “Stranded on Easy Street” is the most satisfying of the short-form narratives here, with a tentative romance between its wary narrator and a rich girl:

She put me at the wheel of her father’s new car

She loved how her touch made me want to drive farther

She loved how her money meant she’d tell me how far. The obligatory social-consciousness songs about racism and environmentalism are outdone by the surprisingly sensual evocations of heat and desire. Imagine an easier-going Tennessee Williams riding “the wave.”