the ultimate saloon moment: "Excuse me while I disappear," he sings, echoing Frank Sinatra's famed ending on "Angel Eyes." Like that misery classic, Scar's songs mostly sputter about an unnamed "you" whose persecutions have left the narrator stuck in besotted melancholy. "I look at you as the thing I wanted most/You look at me, and it's like you've seen a ghost," moans Henry. But where Sinatra found grandeur in this sort of thing, Henry turns from lovelorn to irritatingly existential. "You left me with everything, knowing it would never be enough," goes a typical lament on "Rough and Tumble." It's a moving enough sentiment when the bar is propping you up at 3 a.m., but you don't have to worry with Scar: The morning light will show it's just a paper cut. (RS 869 - May 24, 2001)

RICHARD ABOWITZ