BREAKING UP IS GOOD TO DO...

By RICHARD CORLISS

It was the most improbable celebrity match of the '90s: Hollywood's pretty woman Julia Roberts and lizard-visaged country singer Lyle Lovett. Yet when they wed after a month-long, blinders-on courtship in 1993, Lovett's admirers were the ones to ask, What does he see in her? Wasn't he the more courtly, substantial, vulnerable of the two? After their bust-up 21 months later, the uncouple remained tantalizingly mum. But Lovett, a caustic songwriter, could be expected to have the last words.

Here they are, in 12 choice cuts of The Road to Ensenada (MCA). Listen for the testimony and you may be persuaded that the whole marriage was fieldwork, research under fire for an album of wily recrimination. In the acerbic Christmas Morning the singer describes three genial lies--"Have a great day," "Peace and goodwill to men" and a bride's vow to take her man for better or worse--and plaintively asks, "But hey, what did you mean by that?/ Perhaps I'm the tool you take me for,/ Not anything more." In the faux-perky, hit-bound I Can't Love You Anymore, Lovett travels a Georgia road (that's Roberts' home state) and gets the Good Lord's dispensation to give his "angel in distress" a gentle but firm kiss-off. "I don't love you any less/ But I can't love you anymore."

All right, look. We possess no special dish about Lovett and Roberts. As for the primal emotions on The Road to Ensenada--feelings of guilt, betrayal, failure, vengefulness--these can also be found in something like 95% of all country songs written by people who were never married to Julia Roberts. But only about 5% are as potent as the tunes here--whoever inspired it, this is Lovett's solidest package in a long, ornery career.

As with any Lovett collection, this one has its share of the funky-flaky. The opener, (You Can Have My Girl but) Don't Touch My Hat, finds the Texan in a possessive frenzy about his "John B. Stetson." Promises, meanwhile, is naked Lyle, skin flayed, soul raw--with grief that could be whispered from a jail cell or an unquiet grave. The melody is plain, the guitar accompaniment plaintive: the song enshrouds you in its desperate beauty.

For release, back up quickly to the previous number, Private Conversation, and surrender to the pulse of a Saturday-night bar band. Maybe you don't dare face "the moral of this story," which is "to look at what you've been through/ And see what you've become." Not to sweat; just follow the Gospel According to Lyle: "Boy, pick up that fiddle,/ Ooh and play that steel guitar,/ Ooh and find your- self a lady,/ Ooh and dance right where you are." This buoyant song allows you to do nothing else. It proves there's no misery, public or private, so deep that good music can't lift you out of it. Lovett's album plunges and soars like the mood of any lover, and here reaches a wry affirmation--one you can square-dance to.

--By Richard Corliss