POP MUSIC REVIEW : Lower-Case lang’s Torch ‘n’ Twang

After a bit of confusion about which song was next in her set Thursday at the Wiltern Theatre, k.d. lang issued this casual aside: “I know you’re used to seeing professional shows and everything, but I thought if I just came out here and sang, it would be OK.”

Understatement of the year. From an aching whisper to a soaring, sustained roar, lang, looking a bit like a poor man’s (or make that woman’s) Elvis, lit a campfire under her torch songs. The lower-case Canadian’s “concept-country” may occasionally fall prey to studied effects and calculated corn, but her vocal instrument is capable of spine-tingling dynamics.

Still, you might sometimes wish that k.d. had K.T.’s (Oslin, that is) abilities in the songwriting department. While up-tempo barn-burners from lang’s recent “Absolute Torch and Twang” album plowed by on the strength of her lung power and the bull-whip snap of her seven-piece band, the reclines (they’re lower case too), often these originals were a patchwork of genre borrowings in search of a hook to sustain them.

And Thursday’s show would have benefited from fewer hoedowns and more slow-downs, like the selections from last year’s “Shadowland” collection of smoky, late-night country chestnuts that provided Thursday’s most emotionally resonant moments. On those, lang evoked both the cool control of ‘50s jazz chanteuses and the sweet dreaminess of Patsy Cline.

By now any notions of lang being a quirky, androgynous novelty--some kind of Laurie Anderson of country--should be effectively laid to rest. This is an artist possessing both an intellectual overview of her music’s thematic possibilities and the unabashed emotionalism to take them over-the-top; a down-to-earth, slyly satirical performer with a supernatural vocal presence. Lang appears again at the Wiltern tonight.