Muffs Get in Touch With Softer...

On the Muffs’ fourth album, front woman Kim Shattuck pretty much has ditched her old persona as a screaming spitfire and let her gentler side take hold. Oh, there are two or three of her old “yaaarrrgghh!” howls dispersed among this CD’s dozen songs (not counting a closing instrumental), but it sounds as if it’s there for the sake of form or nostalgia more than because she really needs to roar.

Shattuck’s attempt at a kinder, gentler way of being confrontational generates some nice humor on “Room With a View,” a sway-along waltz in which she tries to let an unwanted suitor down gently but ultimately has to be blunt to get her message across: “I don’t like it; I want you out of my face.”

On “I’m Not Around,” set to a bouncing country beat that recalls the Beatles’ Carl Perkins- and Buck Owens-influenced side, Shattuck, that erstwhile malicious menace, makes the rhyme, “Yeah, you’re a creep as far as I can tell / When you go to sleep, you’re sure to go to hell,” sound like a jovial slap on the back.

Having dispensed with the screams, Shattuck needs to expand beyond the simple I-addressing-You format that is her sole songwriting approach. As always, the Kinks, the Who and the Beatles, circa 1965-66, figure as the Muffs’ prime musical inspirations, so it’s not as if she isn’t aware of how a songwriter can play with other points of view.

Also, some country-ish twang in the phrasing here and there (to nice effect) suggests Shattuck may have been paying attention to Lucinda Williams, another masterful storyteller. Following those leads would help.

Some of “Alert Today” is a snooze, with rockers that don’t pack enough wallop or tunefulness. But most of it holds up well. On the opening track, “I Wish That I Could Be You,” Roy McDonald gives a clinic in how to orbit a drum kit with the coil-and-launch propulsion of Keith Moon.

That closing instrumental, “Jack Champagne,” sounds like a fine homage to the Pixies’ surfin’-in-space massed-guitar sound. Shattuck and bassist Ronnie Barnett ride waves of imitation with gusto.

You’ve heard of the answer-song that responds to a famous track? It’s enjoyable to think of the Muffs’ quietly lovely ballad, “Prettier Than Me,” as a question song that finds its comforting answer in the Velvet Underground’s tender, 1967 classic, “I’ll Be Your Mirror.”

“My dreams are prettier than me,” Shattuck sings wistfully, strumming gently to chords that mirror “I’ll Be Your Mirror.” To which one can imagine Lou Reed crooning his wonderfully reassuring response to a friend or lover’s case of unwarranted self-condemnation: “When you think the night has seen your mind / Let me stand to show that you are blind . . . I’ll be your mirror, reflect what you are.”

In a similar vein, Shattuck’s “Your Kiss” calls to mind Williams drawling one of her memorable refrains, “still I long for your kiss.”

“Alert Today Alive Tomorrow” could be a transitional album heralding a more mature, developed artistic approach. Once easily pegged as that catchy-but-punky garage band with the screaming girl singer and the volatile stage personality, the Muffs may be replicating in slow motion the sudden burst of maturation that transformed their British Invasion heroes during the mid-1960s.

Available from Honest Don’s, P.O. Box 192027, San Francisco, CA 94119, or www.honestdons.com.

* The Muffs, the Measles, Buck and Serial Killing 101 play tonight at Chain Reaction, 1652 W. Lincoln, Anaheim. 7:30 p.m. $8-$10. (714) 635-6067.