Madeleine Peyroux CARELESS LOVE (Rounder)

Much has been made of Madeleine Peyroux’s vocal similarities to Billie Holiday, and she doesn’t do much to mask that perception on Careless Love, her eight-years-in-coming second album. But the American-born, Paris-raised singer has her own instinctive feeling for pacing and texture that elevates her above mere mimicry, and Careless Love resonates with deeply felt torch balladry and bluesy laments that never fail to hit their mark — the heart.

Although by no means a flop, her debut, Dreamland, was well ahead of the after-hours, smoky-voiced chanteuse revival popularized by Norah Jones and Diana Krall, and Careless Love finds Peyroux collaborating with Jones cohort Jesse Harris. Their "Don’t Wait Too Long" is a timeless-sounding swing number that’s easily of a piece with the album’s more well-known compositions. Peyroux adds a sensual lilt to Leonard Cohen’s dirge-y "Dance Me of Love"; her lithesome spin on Dylan’s "You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" whispers its tear-stained sentiments; and her interpretation of Elliott Smith’s "Between the Bars," with its spare-to-the-bone arrangement, is harrowing. A cover of Josephine Baker’s "J’ai deux amours" ("I Have Two Loves") is especially poignant given that when Baker sang it during World War II, the song symbolized the alliance between France and the US — an alliance that, like the other relationships that Peyroux portrays on Careless Love, is in the midst of a quiet storm.