Album Reviews : ** , HOLLY COLE, “Temptation”, <i> Metro Blue</i>

This may be the album Cole needs to cross over from the relatively cloistered world of the jazz chanteuse to wider pop exposure. Choosing producer Craig Street, who supervised Cassandra Wilson’s career-boosting “Blue Light ‘Til Dawn,” was a big step in the right direction. Choosing to do an entire program of Tom Waits songs was a more risky--but ultimately shrewd--decision.

Wisely, Cole has largely steered clear of Waits’ most dissolute, bottom-of-the-bottle tunes in favor of his poetic mini-dramas, along with such familiar items as “Jersey Girl,” “Little Boy Blue” and “Heart of Saturday Night.”

At her best, Cole finds fascinating ways to deal with what is, by any definition, highly idiosyncratic material. Where Waits’ boozy surrealism candidly plumbs the emotional depths in pursuit of a kind of unwaveringly hard-boiled street truth, Cole is more circuitous. In several songs she uses catchy rhythmic grooves to generate sinuous, suggestive readings that skirt the edges of feeling, pulling the listener in via indirection and innuendo.

Do Cole’s renderings of Waits reach the level of Jennifer Warnes’ memorable interpretations of Leonard Cohen on “Famous Blue Raincoat”? Not quite. But close-very close.

New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).