Martha Wainwright. "I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings Too." Zoe.

Betrayal and self-doubt arrive with gleaming guitars and Martha Wainwright's high, clear voice on her second album. Wainwright -- Rufus Wainwright's sister and the daughter of Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III -- shares the family tradition of mixing craft and candor. "You were cruel in a different way than I was used to," she sings in "Hearts Club Band."

Breakups are everywhere, from first-person romances to her parents' divorce; she's not sure she can trust anyone, herself included, and the songs are filled with regrets and unresolved memories: "It was the time before the last/ and we did not make up," she sings in "In the Middle of the Night." In "Comin' Tonight" she trysts with an old flame who's on tour, and her anticipation is mixed with calculation: "I can steal a melody," she sings. "You would never sue me baby/ It would be weird." Wainwright moves amid prettily finger-picked folk/rock and more eccentric arrangements. "You Cheated Me" puts the beat, harmonies and handclaps of old girl-group productions behind a bitter chorus: "You cheated me and I can't believe it/ I've been calling since four o'clock last night." Luckily, Wainwright's melodies are more reliable than her past loves.

— Jon Pareles, c. New York Times News Service

Three 6 Mafia. "Last 2 Walk." Hypnotize Minds/Columbia.

A couple of years ago it would have been easy to mistake the core members of Three 6 Mafia -- Juicy J and DJ Paul -- for rap stars. In 2005 they had their first pop hit, the sweeping and sinister "Stay Fly," and in 2006 they won the Oscar for Best Original Song, memorably performing "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp," from "Hustle & Flow," to an Academy Awards audience that didn't seem quite sure if it was being punk'd; Who were these guys? But Three 6 Mafia, from Memphis, had been making terrific, spooky albums for more than a decade, though it hadn't had much success or recognition outside the South. After the Oscars, Three 6 Mafia rode the wave of unlikely fame, excising an ancillary member, Crunchy Black, and moving to California to tape an MTV reality series, the occasionally amusing, more often uncomfortable "Adventures in Hollyhood."

On that show, Three 6 Mafia members were routinely portrayed as country folk not quite sure how to cope in the big city. And there is a slight residue of their "Hollyhood" days here, particularly "My Own Way," a dismal team-up with ordinarily antic (but here gloomy) rock band Good Charlotte. But mostly, and thankfully, the group seems to have forgotten its brush with the limelight. Which is to say "Last 2 Walk," its first album since the excellent "Most Known Unknown," from 2005, sounds like vintage Three 6 Mafia: bruising production, gloriously foul-natured lyrics, single-minded focus on life's pleasures -- the humorous "I'd Rather" and "Lolli Lolli (Pop That Body)" -- all under a cloud of paranoia. "Play with your PlayStation," they warn, absurdly, on "PlayStation," "Don't play with me, boy." And yet, even when Three 6 Mafia menaces, it's exuberant. Over the years it has learned to create minor-key arrangements that bend in curious, exciting ways, seen here on "First 48" and "On Some Chrome," a collaboration with UGK. Given the choices Juicy J and DJ Paul could have made -- and for a time, did make -- "Last 2 Walk" feels almost willfully obscure: in other words, right back where they belong.

— Jon Caramanica, c. New York Times News Service