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** Matthew Ryan

EAST AUTUMN GRIN

(A&M/Interscope)

Matthew Ryan's 1998 debut, Mayday, found him staking a claim for himself as a singer/songwriter somewhere between Bruce Springsteen's hoarse-voiced, blue-collar stoicism and Paul Westerberg's brow-furrowing gravity. The follow-up, East Autumn Grin, throws in liberal doses of Dylan -- Jakob, not Bob. And given that so many from the most recent crops of male singer-songwriters are sample-happy Beckophiles, there's something refreshing and almost novel about Ryan's Wallflowers-style traditionalism. The result is an authentically rootsy collection of tunes that falter only when he indulges in the sort of coffeehouse bathos that has dogged singer/songwriter types since the dawn of the genre. The way East Autumn Grin's tales of breaking and broken relationships rely on religious symbolism isn't always such a good thing either. Still, the album shows off Ryan as a deft songwriter who can move beyond the kind of grimly fractured fairy tales he seems to prefer, and who doesn't have to be quite so serious all the time.

-- Allison Stewart