He opens his fifth effort with the question “Do I Disappoint You?” and Rufus Wainwright would be hard-pressed to get an honest “yes” out of anyone within listening range.
The cabaret-pop singer/songwriter initially set out to create a simple, introspective collection called The Black and White Album, but upon decamping to Berlin, he discovered he was unwittingly channeling legions of composers that went before him. His keyboard-and-guitar work has long been accented with symphonic touches, but here he goes all out, with mammoth orchestral swells that build in the comparatively mellow “Not Ready to Love,” “Leaving for Paris No. 2” and “Nobody’s Off the Hook” and peak with the horns-blazing trio of “Rules and Regulations,” “Slideshow” and Old-Hollywood-glammy closer “Release the Stars.”
Between all the dense stringplay, there’s “Going to a Town,” a more melancholy, less preachy version of Morrissey’s “America Is Not the World,” and the booty-call eloquence of “Between My Legs,” a track destined for dance-floor remixing in which he slyly promises, “And I’ll write about you, dancing without you/And I’ll shed a tear between my legs.” There’s also “Tulsa,” a loveably goofy recollection of a night spent out with Brandon Flowers. Now if only Wainwright could get Flowers balancing theatricality and vulnerability as well as he ... –Julie Seabaugh