POP MUSIC REVIEW : New Material Fails to Do Justice to McBroom

Amanda McBroom’s opening at the Cinegrill on Tuesday was an unusual reworking of the singer-songwriter formulation.

Ordinarily, uncertain singing skills can be the price one pays to hear songs as they were originally conceived by their composers. In McBroom’s case, the formula is reversed: She is a first-rate performer whose catalogue rarely achieves the level of her finest individual works, “Ship in a Bottle,” “Crimes of the Heart,” “Baby” and “The Rose.”

Most of the new material in her current show was either sweetly romantic (“No Fear”) or brightly comedic (“Dieter’s Prayer”). But the ballads were not particularly memorable, and the novelty numbers tended to telegraph most of their humor.

There were two exceptions. The superbly atmospheric “I Dream of Rain,” written with Freddy Ravel, was sung beautifully, and flawed only in its failure to use a samba/bossa nova accompaniment--clearly its natural rhythm. And “Errol Flynn,” written to a poem by Gordon Hunt, sparkled with a mixture of whimsy and irony not always present in McBroom’s own lyrics.

Curiously, McBroom sounded best on standards such as “My Romance,” “Baltimore Oriole” and, especially, Jacques Brel’s “Carousel.” Although her interpretations were restricted by Michele Brourman’s monochromatic piano accompaniments, McBroom has matured into a gifted chanteuse--one who would do well to expand her repertoire of classic American (and European) songs.

McBroom continues at the Cinegrill through Saturday.