POP MUSIC REVIEW : Mark Eitzel Turns Inner Torment Into Compelling Art at Palomino

The Palomino has heard many a song of loss and regret in its time, but the venerable country and rock club may never have hosted anything like Mark Eitzel before Monday. Fronting the San Francisco-based American Music Club--long a cult favorite that recently signed with Warner Bros. Records--Eitzel proved himself a master at turning inner torment into compelling art.

He’s much smoother than Tom Waits, less mannered than Leonard Cohen and less abrasively snotty than Elvis Costello, though those three (along with Hank Williams and John Cale) are reasonable reference points. Mostly previewing new material Monday, Eitzel was the ultimate saloon singer, operating in three basic moods: anguish, resignation and anguished resignation.

Sometimes he offered it up with a sardonic twist, as in an oblique nod in the direction of Tony Bennett--though in song Eitzel’s heart gets left in a leper colony. Other times he came straight from the heart, as in an irony-free song in which he laid his art at the feet of Johnny Mathis for approval. It’s a tricky balance between knowing rocker and sentimental crooner, but Eitzel pulled it off in mesmerizing fashion.

Even trickier is the band’s music, which isn’t really country, torch or rock, but draws on all three in a stream-of-consciousness flow that matches Eitzel’s lyrics twist for twist, haunting for haunting, always in service of song yet strong enough to stand on its own--and thoroughly justifying the band’s presumptuous name.