[ cabaret/pop ]
After a pair of sprawling double-disc sets — the thornily intricate Broadway-jazz suite Obligatory Villagers, and last year's sprightly Doris Day tribute — Nellie McKay's fifth album feels like her loosest, least ambitious to date. Which isn't to say that Home Sweet Mobile Home(Verve) finds the irrepressible New York songstress entirely reining in her genre-hopping drama-kid tendencies: There's still space here for whimsical reggae forays, N'awlins-style jazz blowouts, protest-minded soul-funk and the cream-puff Latinisms of the lovably inane "¡Bodega!" But perhaps the album's best moments are those which temper her chipper, cheerful stage persona with a solid, sedative dose of the moody blues — it's refreshing to hear this perennially precocious firecracker finally play it cool, Daddy-O, without losing any of her whippersnapper smarts.
Sun., Dec. 12, 7:30 p.m., $25-$28, with Birdie Busch, World Café Live, 3025 Walnut St., 215-222-1400, worldcafelive.com.
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