THE MAVERICKS”What a Crying Shame” MCA* *...

THE MAVERICKS

“What a Crying Shame”

MCA

* * *

With its second album, the Miami-based Mavericks confirm their place among the elite of contemporary country music.

It’s clear that the triple-threat skills singer-songwriter-guitarist Raul Malo exhibited on the group’s 1992 debut were no fluke. The first six songs, all of which Malo wrote with various partners, ring like classics: “There Goes My Heart” and “Pretend” could be vintage Buck Owens; “I Should Have Been True” shows that the operatic ballad didn’t die with Roy Orbison.

Melodies etch themselves into the memory instantly, instrumental hooks feel as if they’ve been hammered out during countless nights in beer-drenched honky-tonks.

The band’s original tunes are so impressive that its versions of songs by Bruce Springsteen, Jesse Winchester and Harlan Howard--not a slouch among them--are anticlimactic. Still, even the album’s less-gripping second half stands above what’s topping the country singles charts these days.

Malo’s honey-soaked voice--poignant, apologetic or resigned at the right moments--can evoke the sweep of Del Shannon, the power of Orbison or the twang of Dwight Yoakam.

This time, it’s for real.

New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent). A rating of five stars (a classic) is reserved for retrospective albums.